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And the dead 
Steer'd by the dumb went upward with the flood — 
In her right 'hand the lily, in her left 
The letter. ..... 

For she did not seem as dead, 
But fast asleep, and lay as tho' she smiled. 



THE 



POETICAL WORKS 



OF 



ALFRED TENNYSON, 



POET LAUREATE. 



NUMER us ILL US TEA TIONS. 




NEW YORK: 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN SQUARE. 
1870. 



CONTENTS. 



Poems (Published 1830):— page 

To the Queen 'J 

Chiribel 9 

Lilisin 9 

Isabel 10 

Mariana 10 

To 11 

Madeline 11 

Song.— The Owl 12 

Second Song 12 

Recollections of the Arabian Nights 12 

Ode to Memory 13 

Song 14 

Adeline 14 

A Character 15 

The Poet 15 

The Poet's Mind 15 

The Sea-Fairies ' 16 

The Deserted House 10 

The Dying Swan IT 

A Dirge IT 

Love and Death IT 

The Ballad of Oriana 13 

Circumstance 13 

The Merman IS 

The Mermaid • . 19 

Sonnet to J. M. K 19 

Poems (Published 1832):— 

The Lady of Shalott 19 

Mariana in the South - 21 

Eleiinore , 22 

The Miller's Daughter ' 23 

Fatima 25 

(Enone 25 

The Sisters 2T 

To 2T 

The Palace of Art 2T 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere 30 

The May Queen 31 

New- Year's Eve 32 

Conclusion 33 

The Lotos-Eaters 35 

A Dream of Fair Women 3G 

Margaret 39 

The Blackbird 39 

The Death of the Old Year 39 

To J. S 40 

"You ask me why, tho' ill at ease" 41 

"Of old sat Freedom on the heights" 41 

"Love thou thy land, with love far-brought". . . . • 41 

The Goose 42 

English Idyi-s and other Poems (Published 1842) :— 

The Epic 43 

JK-rte d'Arthur 44 

The Gardener's Daughter ; or, the Pictures 47 

Dora 49 

Audley Court 50 

Walking to the Mail 50 

Edwin Morris; or. The Lake , . . . 51 

St. Simeon Stylites 52 

The Talking Oak 54 

Love and Duty 56 

The Golden Year 57 

Ulysses 57 

Ln-ksley Hall 59 

Codiva C3 

The Two Voices C4 



vi CONTENTS. 



PAGK 

The Day-Dream 68 

Amphion 70 

Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue 71 

To , after reading a Life and Letters 73 

Lady Clare 73 

St. Agnes 74 

Sir Galahad 75 

To E. L. on his Travels in Greece 76 

The Lord of Burleigh 76 

Edward Gray 77 

Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere 77 

A Farewell 78 

The Vision of Sin 78 

" Come not, when I am dead " SO 

The Eagle 80 

"Move eastward, happy Earth, and leave" 80 

" Break, break, break " 80 

The Beggar Maid 81 

The Poet's Song . . . . • 81 

The Peinoess: A Medley 82 

In Memoriam 105 

Maup, and othek Poems : — 

Maud 129 

— - The Brook: an Idyl 142 

The Letters 143 

Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington 144 

The Daisy 146 

To the Eev. F. D. Maurice .147 

Will 147 

The Charge of the Light Brigade 147 

Idyls op the King : — 

Dedication 148 

Enid 148 

Vivien 161 

Elaine 168 

Guinevere •. 177 

Enoch Arden 183 

Additional Poems : — 

Aylmer's Field 190 

Sea Dreams 195 

The Grandmother 198 

Northern Farmer 200 

Tithonus 201 

The Voyage 202 

In the Valley of Canteretz 203 

The Flower 203 

The Islet 203 

Requiescat 203 

The Sailor-Boy 203 

The Ringlet 203 

A Welcome to Alexandra 204 

Ode sung at the Opening of the International Exhibition 204 

A Dedication 204 

The Captain: a Legend of the Navy 204 

Three Sonnets to a Coquette 205 

On a Mourner 205 

Song 205 

Song 206 

EXPBRIMENTS : — 

Boiidicea 207 

In Quantity 207 

Specimen of a Translation of the Iliad in Blank Verse 208 

The Coming of Arthur 208 

The Holy Grail 211 

Pelleas and Ettarre 217 

The Passing of Arthur 221 

MiSCELLANEOtrS : — 

The Northern Farmer. New stvle 225 

The Victim 226 

Wages ,227 

The Higher Pantheism 227 

"Flower in the Crannied Wall". 227 

Lucretius 227 

The Golden Supper 229 




THE POET LAUREATE. 




POEMS. 



(published 1830.) 



TO THE queen; 

Rbveeed, beloved — O you that hold 

A uobler office upon earth 

Than arms, or power of brain or birth 
Could give the vparrior kings of old, 

Victoria,— since yonr Royal grace 
To one of less desert allows 
This laurel greener from the brows 

Of him that uttered nothing base; 

And should your greatness, and the care 
That yokes with empire, yield you time 
To make demand of modern rhyme 

If aught of ancient worth be there ; 

Then — while a sweeter music wakes, 
And thro' wild March the throstle calls, 
Where all about your palace-walls 

The sunlit almond-blossom shakes — 

Take, Madam, this poor book of song; 
For tho' the faults were thick as dust 
In vacant chambers, I could trust 

Your kindness. May you rule us long, 

And leave us rulers of your blood 

As noble till the latest day ! 

May children of our children say, 
"She wrought her people lasting good; 

"Her court was pure; her. life serene; 

God gave her peace ; her land reposed ; 

A thousand claims to reverence closed 
In her as Mother, Wife, and Queen ; 

"And statesmen at her council met 
Who knew the seasons, when to take 
Occasion by the hand, and make 
The bouods of freedom wider yet 

" By shaping some august decree, 
Which kept her throne unshaken still, 
Broad based upon her people's will. 

And compassed by the inviolate sea." 
Makch, 1851. 



CLARIBEL. 

A MELODY. 
1. 

WnBKE Claribel low-lieth 
The breezes pause and die. 
Letting the rose-leaves fall : 
But the solemn oak-tree sigheth. 



Thick-leaved, ambrosial, 
With an ancient melody 
Of an inward agony. 
Where Claribel low-lieth. 



At eve the beetle boometh 
Athwart the thicket lone : 

At noon the wild bee hummeth 
About the moss'd headstone : 

At midnight the moon cometh. 
And looketh down alone. 



Her song the lintwhite swelleth. 
The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth. 

The callow throstle lispeth, 
The slumberous wave outwelleth. 

The babbling runnel crispeth, 
The hollow grot replieth 
Where Claribel low-lieth. 



LILIAN. 



Airy, fairy Lilian, 

Flitting, fairy Lilian, 
When I ask her if she love me. 
Clasps her tiny hands above me, 

Laughing all she can ; 
She'll not tell me if she love me, 

Cruel little Lilian. 



When my passion seeks 

Pleasance in love-sighs 
She, looking thro' and thro' me 
Thoroughly to undo me. 

Smiling, never speaks : 
So innocent-arch, so cuniiincr-siraple. 
From beneath her gather'd wimple 
Glancing with black-bearted eyes. 
Till the lightning laughters dimple 

The baby-roses in her cheeks; 
Then away she flies. 



Prythee weep. May Lilian '. 
Gayety without eclipse 

Wearieth me. May Lilian : 
Thro' my very heart it thrilleth 

When from crimson-threaded lips 
Silver-treble laughter trilleth: 

Prythee weep, Blay Lilian. 



10 



ISABEL.— MARIANA. 



Praying all I can, 
If prayers will not hush thee, 

Airy Lilian, 
Like a rose-leaf I will crush thee, 

Fairy Lilian. 



ISABEL. 

1. 
Eves not down-dropperl nor over-bright, but fed 
With the cleai--poiuted flame of chastity, 
Clear, without heat, undying, tendefl by 
Pure vestal thoughts in the translucent fane 
Of her still spirit; locks not wide dispread, 
Madonna-wise on either side her head ; 
Sweet lips whereon perpetually did reign 
The summer calm of golden charity. 
Were fixed shadows of thy fixed mood, 

Revered Isabel, the crown and head, 
The stately flower of female fortitude, 

Of perfect wifehood, and pure lowlihead. 

2. 

The intuitive decision of a bright 
And thorough-edged intellect to part 

Error from crime ; a prudence to withhold ; 

The laws of marriage character'd in gold 
Upon the blanched tablets of her heart ; 
A love still burning upward, giving light 
To read those laws ; an accent very low 
In blandishment, but a most silver flow 

Of subtle-paced counsel iu distress. 
Right to the heart and brain, tho' uudescried, 

Winning its way with extreme gentleness 
Thro' all the outworks of suspicious pride; 



A courage to endure and to obey : 
A hate of gossip parlance and of sway, 
Crown'd Isabel, thro' all her placid life, 
The queen of marriage, a most perfect wife. 

3. 

The mellowed reflex of a winter moon ; 

A clear stream flowing with a muddy one. 
Till in its onward current it absorbs 
With swifter movement and in purer light 
The vexed eddies of its wayward brother ; 
A leaning and upbearing parasite, 
Clothing the stem, which else had fallen quite, 

With cluster'd flower-bells and ambrosial orbs 
Of rich fruit-bunches leaning on each other — 
Shadow forth thee ;— the world hath not another 

(Though all her fairest forms are types of thee, 

And thou of God in thy great charity) 

Of such a fluish'd chasten'd purity. 



MARIANA. 

" Mariana in the moated grange." 

Measure for Measure. 

With blackest moss the flower-plots 

Were thickly crusted, one and all : 

The rusted nails fell from the knots 

That held the peach to the garden-wall. 
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange : 
Unlifted was the clinking latch ; 
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch 
Upon the lonely moated grange. 

She only said, "My life is dreary, 

He cometh not," she said ; 
She said, "I am aweary, aweary, 
I would that I were dead !" 




' Her tears fell with the dew8 at even ; 
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried." 



TO 



-MADELINE. 



11 



Her tears fell with the dews at even ; 

Her tears fell ere the dews were dried ; 
She could uot look on the sweet heaven, 

Either at morn or eventide. 
After the flitting of the bats, 
When thickest dark did trance the sky. 
She drew her casement-curtain by, 
And glanced athwart the glooming flats. 
She only said, "The night is dreary. 

He Cometh not," she said ; ^ 
She said, "I am aweary, aweary, 
I would that I were dead !" 

Upon the middle of the night. 

Waking she heard the night-fowl crow; 
The cock sung out an hour ere light : 

From the dark fen the oxen's low 
Came to her: without hope of change, 
In sleep she seemed to walk forlorn. 
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn 
About the lonely moated grange. 

She only said, "The day is dreary. 

He Cometh not," she said ; 
She said, " I am aweary, aweary, 
I would that I were dead !" 

About a stoue-cast from the wall 

A sluice with blacken'd waters slept. 
And o'er it many, round and small. 
The cluster'd marish-mosses crept. 
Hard by a poplar shook alway, 
All silver-green with gnarled bark: 
For leagues no other tree did mark 
The level waste, the rounding gray. 
She only said, "My life is dreary. 

He Cometh not," she said ; 
She said, " I am aweary, aweary, 
I would that I were dead !" 

And ever when the moon was low. 

And the shrill winds were up and away, 
In the white curtain, to and fro. 

She saw the gusty shadow sway. 
But when the moon was very low. 
And wild winds bound within their cell. 
The shadow of the poplar fell 
Upon her bed, across her brow. 

She only said, "The night is dreary, 

He cometh not," she said; 
She said, " I am aweary, aweary, 
I would that I were dead !" 

All day within the dreamy house. 

The doors upon their hinges creak'd ; 
The blue fly sung in the pane ; the mouse 

Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd, 
Or from the crevice peered about. 
Old faces glimmered thro' the doors. 
Old footsteps trod the upper floors, 
Old voices called her from without. 
She only said, " My life is dreary. 

He Cometh not," she said ; 
She said, "I am aweary, aweary, 
I would that I were dead 1" 

The sparrow's chirrup on the roof. 

The slow clock ticking, and the sound 
Which to the wooing wind aloof 

The poplar made, did all confound 

Her sense; but most she loathed the hour 

When the thick-moted sunbeam lay 

Athwart the chamber!*, and the day 

Was sloping toward his western bower. 

Then said she, " I am very dreary. 

He will not come," she said; 
She wept, "I am aweary, aweary, 
O God, that I were dead !" 



TO 



Ci.EAR-HEADED friend, whose joyful scorn. 
Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwaia 
The knots that tangle human creeds, 
The wounding cords that bind and strain 
The heart until it bleeds, 
Kay-fringed eyelids of the morn 

Roof not a glance so keen as thine : 
If aught of prophecy be mine, 
Thou wilt not live in vain. 



Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit ; 

Falsehood shall bare her plaited brow : 

Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now 
With shrilling shafts of subtle wit. 
Nor martyr-flames, nor trenchant swords 

Can do away that ancient lie; 

A gentler death shall Falsehood die. 
Shot thro' and thro' with cunning words. 



Weak Truth a-leaning on her crutch. 
Wan, wasted Truth in her utmost need, 
Thy kingly intellect shall feed. 
Until she be an athlete bold, 

And weary with a finger's touch 
Those writhed limbs of lightning speed ; 

Like that strange angel which of old. 
Until the breaking of the light. 

Wrestled with wandering Israel, 
Past Yabbok brook the livelong night, 

And heaven's mazed signs stood still 

In the dim tract of Penuel. 



MADELINE. 

1. 

Tnoo art not steeped in golden languors, 
No tranced summer calm is thine, 

Ever varying Madeline. 
Thro' light and shadow thou dost range. 
Sudden glances, sweet and strange, 

Delicious spites and darling augers, 
And airy forms of flitting change. 

2. 
Smiling, frowning, evermore. 
Thou art perfect in love-lore. 
Revealings deep and clear are thine 
Of wealthy smiles ; but who may know 
Whether smile or frown be fleeter? 
Whether smile or frown be sweeter. 

Who may know? 
Frowns perfect-sweet along the brow 
Light-glooming over eyes divine. 
Like little clouds, sun-fringed, are thine, 
Ever varying Madeline. 
Thy smile and frown are not aloof 
From one another, 
Each to each is dearest brother; 
Hues of the silken sheeny woof 
Momently shot into each other. 
All the mystery is thine ; 
Smiling, frowning, evermore. 
Thou art perfect in love-lore. 
Ever varying Madeline. 



A subtle, sudden flame. 
By veering passion fann'd. 

About thee breaks and dances; 
When I would kiss thy hand. 



12 



SONGS.— RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. 



The flush of anger'd shame 

O'erflows thy calmer glances, 

Aud o'er black brows drops dowu 

A sudden-curved frown, 

But when I turn away, 

Thou, willing me to stay, 
Wooest not, nor vainly wranglest ; 

But, looking fixedly the while. 
All my bounding heart entanglest 
In a golden-netted smile; 

Then in madness aud in bliss. 

If my lips should dare to kiss 

Thy taper fingers amorously. 

Again thou blushest angerly ; 

And o'er black brows drops down 

A sudden-curved frown. 



SONG.— THE OWL. 



When cats run home and light is come, 

And dew is cold upon the ground, 

Aud the far-off stream is dumb, 

And the whirring sail goes round. 

And the whirring sail goes round ; 

Alone aud warming his five wits. 

The white owl in the belfry sits. 

2. 

When merry milkmaids click the latch, 
And rarely smells the new-mown hay, 
And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch 
Twice or thrice his roundelay, 
Twice or thrice his roundelay: 
Alone and warming his five wits, 
The white owl in the belfry sits. 



SECOND SONG. 

TO THE SAMK. 
1. 

TiiT tuwhits are lull'd I wot, 

Thy tuwhoos of yesternight. 
Which upon the dark afloat. 
So took echo with delight. 
So took echo with delight, 
That her voice uutuneful grown. 
Wears all dav a fainter tone. 



I would mock thy chaunt anew; 

But I cannot mimic it; 
Not a whit of thy tuwhoo. 
Thee to woo to thy tuwhit. 
Thee to woo to thy tuwhit. 
With a lengthen'd loud halloo, 
Tuwhoo, tuwhit, tuwhit, tuwhoo-0-o. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIAN 
NIGHTS. 

When the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free 

In the silken sail of infancy. 
The tide of time flow'd back with me, 

The forward-flowing tide of time : 
Aud many a sheeny summer morn, 
Adown the Tigris I was borne. 
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold, 
lligh-walled gardens green and old ; 
True Mussulman was I and sworn. 

For it was in the golden prime 
Of good Harouu Alraschid. 



Anight my shallop, rustling thro' 
The low and bloomed foliage, drove 
The fragrant, glistening deeps, aud clove 
The citron-shadows in the blue: 
By garden porches on the brim, 
The costly doors flung open wide. 
Gold glittering thro' lamplight dim, 
Aud broider'd sofas on each side: 
In sooth it was a goodly time, 
Foj it was in the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid, 

Often, where clear-stemm'd platans guard 
The outlet, did I turn away 
The boat-head down a broad canal 
From the main river sluiced, where all 
The sloping of the moon-lit sward 
Was damask-work, and deep inlay 
Of braided blooms uumown, which crept 
Adown to where the water slept. 
A goodly place, a goodly time. 
For it was in the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

A motion from the river won 
Ridged the smooth level, bearing on 
My shallop thro' the star-strown calm, 
Until another night in night 
I enter'd, from the clearer light, 
Imbower'd vaults of pillar'd palm. 
Imprisoning sweets, which as they clomb 
Heavenward, were stay'd beneath the dome 
Of hollow boughs. — A goodly time, 
For it was in the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

Still onward ; and the clear canal 
Is rounded to as clear a lake. 
From the green rivage many a fall 
Of diamond rillets musical. 
Thro' little crystal arches low 
Down from the central fountain's flow 
Fall'n silver-chiming, seem'd to shake 
The sparkling fliuts beneath the prow. 
A goodly place, a goodly time. 
For it was in the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

Above thro' many a bowery turn 
A walk with vary-color'd shells 
Wander'd engrain'd. On either side 
All round about the fragrant marge 
From fluted vase, and brazen urn 
In order, eastern flowers large. 
Some dropping low their crimson bells 
Half-closed, and others studded wide 
Wibh disks and tiars, fed the time 
With odor in the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

Far off, and where the lemon-grove 
In closest coverture upsprung, 
The living airs of middle night 
Died round the bnlbul as he sung ; 
Not he: but something which possess'd 
The darkness of the world, delight. 
Life, anguish, death, immortal love. 
Ceasing not, mingled, unrepress'd. 
Apart from place, withholding time, 
But flattering the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

Black the garden,bowers and grots 
Slumber'd: the solemn palms were ranged 
Above, unwoo'd of summer wind : 
A sudden splendor from behind 
Flush'd all the leaves with rich gold-green. 
And, flowing rapidly betweeu 



ODE TO MEMORY. 



13 



Their interspaces, connterchanged 

Tlie level lake with diamoud-plots 

Of dark aud bright. A lovely time, 

For it was in the golden prime 

Of good Harouu Alraschid. 

Dark-blue the deep sphere overhead, 
Distinct with vivid stars inlaid, 
Grew darker from that under-tiame : 
So, leaping lightly from the boat, 
With silver anchor left afloat, 
In marvel whence that glory came 
Upon me, as in sleep I sank 
In cool soft turf upon the bank. 
Entranced with that place and time, 
So worthy of the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

Thence thro' the garden I was drawn — 
A realm of pleasancc, many a mound. 
And many a shadow-chequer'd lawu 
Pull of the city's stilly sound. 
And deep myrrh-thickets blowing round 
The stately cedar, tamarisks. 
Thick rosaries of scented thorn. 
Tall orient shrubs, aud obelisks 

Graven with emblems of the time, 

In honor of the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

With dazed vision unawares 
From the long alley's latticed shade 
Emerged, I came upon the great 
Pavilion of the Caliphat. 
Right to the carveu cedarn doors. 
Flung inward over spangled floors. 
Broad-based flights of marble stairs 
Ran up with golden balustrade. 
After the fashion of the time. 
And humor of the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

The fourscore windows all alight 
As with the quintessence of flame, 
A million tapers flaring bright 
From twisted silvers look'd to shame 
The hollow-vaulted dark, and stream'd 
Upon the mooned domes aloof 
In inmost Bagdat, till there seem'd 
Hundreds of crescents on the roof 

Of night new-risen, that marvellous time. 

To celebrate the golden prime 
Of good Harouu Alraschid. 

Then stole I up, and trancedly 
Gazed on the Persian girl alone, • 
Serene with argent-lidded eyes 
Amorous, aud lashes like to rays 
Of darkness, and a brow of pearl 
Tressed with redolent ebony. 
In many a dark delicious curl, 
Flowing beneath her rose-hued zone ; 
The sweetest lady of the time, 
Well worthy of the golden prime 
Of good Haroun Alraschid. 

Six columns, three on either side. 

Pure silver, underpropt a rich 

Throne of the massive ore, from which 

Down-droop'd in many a floating fold, 

Engarlanded aud diaper'd 

With inwrought flowers, a cloth of gold. 

Thereon, his deep eye laughter-stirr'd 

With merriment of kingly pride, 
Sole star of all that place and time, 
I saw him — in his golden prime, 
TuE Good Hakoun Albascuid ! 



ODE TO MEMORY. 



Thou who stealest Are, 

From the fountains of the past, 

To glorify the preseut ; oh, haste, 
Visit my low desire I 

Strengthen me, enlighten me ! 

I faint in this obscurity. 

Thou dewy dawn of memory. 

2. 

Come not as thou earnest of late. 
Flinging thfi gloom of yesternight 
On the white day ; but robed in soften'd light 

Of orient state. 
Whilome thou camest with the morning mist, 

Even as a maid, whose stately brow 
The dew-impearled winds of dawn have kiss'd, 

When she, as thou. 
Stays on her floating locks the lovely freight 
Of overflowing blooms, and earliest shoots 
Of orient green, giving safe pledge of fruits, 
Which in wintertide shall star 
The black earth with brilliance rare. 



Whilome thou camest with the morning mist, 

And with the evening cloud, 
Showering thy gleaned wealth into my open breast, 
(Those peerless flowers which in the rudest wind 

Never grow sere. 
When rooted in the garden of the mind. 

Because they are the earliest of the year). 
Nor was the night thy shroud. 
In sweet dreams softer than iinbroken rest 
Thou leddest by the hand thine infant Hope. 
The eddying of her garments caught from thee 
The light of thy great presence ; aud the cope 

Of the half-attaiu'd futurity, 

Though deep not fathomless, • 

Was cloven with the million stars 'which tremble 
O'er the deep mind of dauntless infancy. 
Small thought was there of life's distress ; 
For sure she deem'd no mist of earth could dull 
Those spirit-thrilling eyes so keen and beautiful : 
Sure she was nigher to heaven's spheres, 
Listening the lordly music flowing from 
The illimitable years. 

strengthen me, enlighten me ! 

1 faint in this obscurity, 
Thou dewy dawn of memory. 



Come forth I charge thee, arise, 

Thou of the many tongues, the myriad eyes ! 

Thou comest not with shows of flauntiug vines 

Unto mine inner eye, 

Divinest Memory ! 
Thou wcrt not nursed by the waterfall 
Which ever sounds and shines 

A pillar of white light upon the wall 
Of purple cliffs, aloof descried : 
Come from the woods that belt the gray hillside, 
The seven elms, the poplars four 
That stand beside my father's door, 
And chiefly from the brook that loves 
To purl o'er matted cress and ribbed sand, 
Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves. 
Drawing into his narrow earthen urn, 

In every elbow and turn. 
The filter'd tribute of the rough woodland. 

O ' hither lead thy feet ! 
Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat 
Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds, 

Upon the ridged wolds. 



14 



SONG.— ADELINE. 



When the first matin-song hath waken'd loud 

Over the dark dewy earth forlorn, 

What time the amber morn 

Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud. 



Large dowries doth the raptured eye 

To the young spirit present 
When first she is wed ; 

And like a bride of old 
In triumph led, 

With music and sweet showers 
Of festal flowers, 
Unto the dwelling she must sway. 
Well hast thou done, great artist Memory, 

In setting roimd thy first experiment 
With royal frame-work of wrought gold ; 
Needs must thou dearly love thy first essay, 
And foremost in thy various gallery 

Place it, where sweetest sunlight falls 

Upon the storied walls ; 
For the discovery 
And newness of thine art so pleased thee, 
That all which thou hast drawn of fairest 

Or boldest since, but lightly weighs 
With thee unto the love thou bearest 
The first-born of thy genius. Artist-like, 
Ever retiring thou dost gaze 
On the prime labor of thine early days : 
No matter what the sketch might be ; 
Whether the high field on the bushless Pike, 
Or even a sand-built ridge 
Of heaped hills that mound the sea. 
Overblown with murmurs harsh. 
Or even a lowly cottage whence we see 
Stretch'd vnAe and wild the waste enormous marsh, 
Where from the frequent bridge. 
Like emblems of infinity. 
The trenched waters run from sky to sky ; 
Or a garden bower'd close 
With plaited alleys of the trailing rose. 
Long alleys falling down to twilight grots. 
Or opening upon- level plots 
Of crowned lilies, standing near 
Purple-spiked lavender ; 
Whither in after life retired 
From brawling storms, 
From weary wind. 
With youthful fancy reinspired, 
We may hold converse with all forms 
Of the many-sided mind. 
And those whom passion hath not blinded, 
Subtle-thoughted, myriad-minded, 
My friend, with you to live alone. 
Were how much better than to own 
A crown, a sceptre, and a throne 1 

strengthen me, enlighten me ! 

1 faint in this obscurity. 
Thou dewy dawn of memory. 



SONG. 



A spiEiT haunts the year's last honrs 
Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers: 

To himself he talks; 
For at eventide, listening earnestly. 
At his work you may hear him sob and sigh 

In the walks ; 

Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks 
Of the mouldering flowers : 

Heavily hangs the broad sunflower 

Over its grave i' the earth so chilly; 
Heavily hangs the hollyhock, 

Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. 



The air is damp, and hush'd, and close, 

As a sick man's room when he taketh repose 

An hour before death ; 
My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves 
At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves, 

And the breath 

Of the fading edges of box beneath, 
And the year's last rose. 

Heavily hangs the broad sunflower 

Over its grave i' the earth so chilly. 
Heavily hangs the hollyhock. 

Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. 



. ADELINE. 
1. 

Mystery of mysteries. 

Faintly smiling Adeline, 
Scarce of earth nor all divine, 
Nor unhappy, nor at rest. 
But beyond expression fair 
With thy floating flaxen hair; 
Thy rose-lips and full blue eyes 

Take the heart from out my breast 
Wherefore those dim looks of thine, 
Shadowy, dreaming Adeline? 



Whence that aery bloom of thine. 

Like a lily which the sun 
Looks thro' in his sad decline. 

And a rose-bush leans upon. 
Thou that faintly smilest still, 

As a Naiad in a well. 

Looking at the set of day. 
Or a phantom two hours old 

Of a maiden past away. 
Ere the placid lips be cold? 
Wherefore those faint smiles of thine, 

Spiritual Adeline? 

3. 

What hope or fear or joy is thine? 
Who talketh with thee, Adeline? 
For sure thou art not all alone : 

Do beating hearts of salient springs 
Keep measure with thine own? 
Hast thou heard the butterflies. 
What they say betwixt their wings? 
Or in stillest evenings 
With what voice the violet woos 
To his heart the silver dews? 
Or when little airs arise. 
How the merry bluebell rings 
To the mosses underneath? 
Hast thou look'd upon the breath 
Of the lilies at sunrise ? 
Wherefore that faint smile of thine, 
Shadowy, dreaming Adeline? 



Some honey-converse feeds thy mind. 
Some spirit of a crimson rose 
In love with thee forgets to close 
His curtains, wasting odorous sighs 
All night long on darkness blind. 
What aileth thee? whom waitest thou 
With thy soften'd, shadow'd brow, 

And those dew-lit eyes of thine. 
Thou faint smiler, Adeline? 

5. 

Lovest thou the doleful wind 

When thou gazest at the skies? 



A CHAKACTER.— THE POET.— THE POET'S MIND. 



Doth the low-tougued Orient 
Wander from the side of the mom, 
Dripping with Sabasan spice 
On thy pillow, lowly bent 

With melodious airs lovelorn, 
Breathing Light against thy face, 
While his locks a-dropping twined 
Round thy neck in subtle ring 
Make a carcanet of rays. 

And ye talk together still, 
In the language wherewith Spring 
Letters cowslips on the hill ? 
Hence that look and smile of thine. 
Spiritual Adeline. 



A CHARACTER. 

WiTU a half-glance upon the sky 
At night he said, "The wanderings 
Of this most intricate Universe 
Teach me the nothingness of things." 
Yet could not all creation pierce 
Beyond the bottom of his eye. 

He spake of beauty : that the dull 

Saw no divinity in grass. 

Life in dead stones, or spirit in air; 

Then looking as 't were in a glass. 

He smooth'd his chin and sleek'd his hair, 

And said the earth was beautiful. 

He spake of virtue : not the gods 
More purely, when they wish to charm 
Pallas and Juno sitting by: 
And with a sweeping of the arm, 
And a lack-lustre dead-blue eye, 
Devolved his rounded periods. 

Most delicately hour by hour 
He canvassed human mysteries, 
And trod on silk, as if the winds 
Blew his own praises in his eyes. 
And stood aloof from other minds 
In impotence of fancied power. 

With lips depress'd as he were meek. 
Himself unto himself he sold: 
Upon himself himself did feed: 
Quiet, dispassionate, and cold. 
And other than his form of creed, 
With chisell'd features clear and sleek. 



THE POET. 

The poet in a golden clime was born, 

With golden stars above ; 
Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, 
The love of love. 

He saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill 

He saw thro' his own soul. 
The marvel of the everlasting will. 
An open scroll, 

Before him lay: with echoing feet he threaded 

The secretest walks of fame: 
The viewless arrows of his thoughts were headed 
And wing'd with flame. 

Like Indian reeds blown from his silver tongue. 

And of so fierce a flight. 
From Calpe unto Caucasus they sung, 
Filling with light 



And vagrant melodies the winds which bore 

Them earthward till they lit ; 
Then, like the arrow-seeds of the field flower. 
The fruitful wit 

Cleaving, took root, and springing forth anew, 

Where'er they fell, behold. 
Like to the mother plant in semblance, grew 
A flower all gold, 

And bravely furnish'd all abroad to fling 

The winged shafts of truth, 
To throng with stately blooms the breathing spring 
Of Hope and Youth. 

So many minds did gird their orbs with beams, 

Tho' one did fling the fire. 
Heaven flow'd upon the soul in many dreams 
Of high desire. 

Thus truth was multiplied on truth, the world 

Like one great garden show'd, 
And thro' the wreaths of floating dark upcurl'd, 
Rare sunrise flow'd. 

And Freedom rear'd in that august sunrise 

Her beautiful bold brow. 
When rites and forms before his burning eyes 
Melted like snow. 

There was no blood upon her maiden robes 

Sunn'd by those orient skies: 
But round about the circles of the globes 
Of her keen eyes 

And in her raiment's hem was traced in flame 

Wisdom, a name to shake 
All evil dreams of power — a sacred name. 
And when she spake. 

Her words did gather thunder as they ran. 

And as the lightning to the thunder 
Which follows it, riving the spirit of man. 
Making earth wonder, 

So was their meaning to her words. No sword 

Of wrath her right arm whirl'd, 
But one poor poet's scroll, and with hw word 
She shook the world. 



THE POET'S MIND. 

1. 

Vex not thou the poet's mind 

With thy shallow wit: 
Vex not thou the poet's mind ; 

For thou canst not fathom it. 
Clear and bright it should be ever, 
Flowing like a crystal river ; 
Bright as light, and clear as wind. 

2. 

Dark-brow'd sophist, come not anear; 

All the place is holy ground ; 
Hollow smile and frozen sneer 

Come not here. 
Holy water will I pour 
Into every spicy flower 
Of I he laurel-shrubs that hedge it around. 
The flowers would faint at your cruel cheer. 
In your eye there is death, 
There is frast in your breath 
Which would blight the plants. 
Where you stand you cannot hear 
From the groves within 
The wild-bird's din. 



16 



THE SEA-PAIEIES.— THE DESERTED HOUSE. 



In the heart of the garden the merry bird chants, 
It would I'all to the ground if you came in. 

In the middle leaps a fountain 
Like sheet lightning, 
Ever brightening 

With a low melodious thunder; 
All day and all night it is ever drawn 

From the brain of the purple mountain 

Which stands in the distance yonder : 
It springs on a level of bowery lawn, 
And the mountain draws it from Heaven above. 
And it sinfes a song of undying love ; 
And yet, tho' its voice be so clear and full, 
You never would hear it ; your ears are so dull ; 
So keep where you are : you are foul with sin ; 
It would shrink to the earth if you came in. 



THE SEA-EAIRIES. 

Slow sail'd the weary mariners and saw, 
Betwixt the green brink and the running foam. 
Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms prest 
To little harps of gold ; and while they mused. 
Whispering to each other half in fear. 
Shrill music reach'd them on the middle sea. 

Whither away, whither away, whither away ? fly no 

more. 
Whither away from the high green field, and the 

happy blossoming shore? 
Day and night to the billow the fountain calls; 
Down shower the gambolling waterfalls 
From wandering over the lea : 
Out of the live-green heart of the dells 
They freshen the silvery-crimson shells. 
And thick with white bells the clover-hill swells 
High over the full-toned sea: 
O hither, come hither and furl your sails. 
Come hither to me and to me : 
Hither, come hither and frolic and play"; 
Here it is only the mew that wails ; 
We will sing to you all the day : 
Mariner, mariner, furl your sails, 



For here are the blissful downs and dales. 
And merrily merrily carol the gales. 
And the spangle dances in bight and bay. 
And the rainbow forms and flies on the land 
Over the islands free; 

And the rainbow lives in the curve of the sand ; 
Hither, come hither and see ; 
And the rainbow hangs on the poising wave. 
And sweet is the color of cove and cave. 
And sweet shall your welcome be: 
O hither, come hither, and be our lords. 
For merry brides are we : 

We will kiss sweet kisses, and speak sweet words : 
O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten 
With pleasure and love and jubilee : 
O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten 
When the sharp clear twang of the golden chords 
Runs up the ridged sea. 
Who can light on as happy a shore 
All the world o'er, all the world o'er? 
Whither away? listen and stay: mariner, mariner, 
fly no more. 



THE DESERTED HOUSE. 

1. 
Life and Thought have gone away 
Side by side. 
Leaving door and windows wide: 
Careless tenants they! 



All within is dark as night: 
In the windows is no light; 
And no murmur at the door, 
So frequent on its hinge before. 

3. 

Close the door, the shutters close. 
Or thro' the windows we shall see 
The nakedness and vacancy 

Of the dark deserted house. 




' Life and Thought have gone away 
Side by side." 



THE DYING SWAN.— A DIRGE.— LOVE AND DEA'TH. 



Come away : no more of mirth 

Is here or merry-making sound. 

The house was builded of the earth, 
And shall fall again to ground. 



Come away: for Life and Thought 
Here no longer dwell ; 
But in a city glorious — 
A great and distant city — have bought 
A mansion incorruptible. 
Would they could have stayed with us I 



THE DYING SWAN. 



The plain was grassy, wild and bare. 

Wide, wild, and open to the air, 
Which had built up everywhere 

An under-roof of doleful gray. 
With an inner voice the river ran, 
Adown it floated a dying swan, 
And loudly did lament. 

It was the middle of the day. 
Ever the weary wind went on. 

And took the reed-tops as it went. 

2. 

Some blue peaks in the distance rose, 
And white against the cold-white sky, 
Shone out their crowning snows. 

One willow over the river wept, 
And shook the wave as the wind did sigh ; 
Above in the wind was the swallow. 
Chasing itself at its own wild will. 
And far thro' the marish green and still 

The tangled water-courses slept, 
Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow. 



The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul 

Of that waste place with joy 

Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear 

The warble was low, and full and clear; 

And floating about the under-sky, 

Prevailing in weakness, the coronach stole ; 

Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear, 

But anon her awful, jubilant voice, 

With a music strange and manifold, 

Flow'd forth on a carol free and bold; 

As when a mighty people rejoice, 

With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold, 

And the tumult of their acclaim is roU'd 

Thro' the open gates of the city afar. 

To the shepherd who watcbeth the evening star. 

And the creeping mosses and clambering weeds, 

And the willow-branches hoar and dank. 

And the wavy swell of the soughing reeds. 

And the wave-worn horns of the echoing bank. 

And the silvery marish-flowers that throng 

The desolate creeks and pools among, 

Were flooded over with eddying song. 



A DIRGE. 

1. 

Now is done thy long day's work; 
Fold thy palms across thy breast. 
Fold thine arms, turn to thy rest. 
Let them rave. 
2 



Shadows of the silver birk 
Sweep the green that folds thy grave. 
Let them rave. 

2. 
Thee nor carketh care nor slander; 
Nothing but the small cold worm 
Fretteth thine enshrouded form. 

Let them rave. 
Light and shadow ever wander 
O'er the green that folds thy grave. 

Let them rave. 

3. 

Thou wilt not turn upon thy bed ; 
Chanteth not the brooding bee 
Sweeter tones than calumny? 

Let them rave. 
Thou wilt never raise thine head 
From the green that folds thy grave. 

Let them rave. 



Crocodiles wept tears for thee; 

The woodbine and eglatere 

Drip sweeter dews than traitor's tear. 

Let them rave. 
Rain makes music in the tree 
O'er the green that folds thy grave. 

Let them rave. 



Round thee blow, self-pleached deep, 
Bramble-roses, faint and pale. 
And long purples of the dale. 

Let them rave. 
These in every shower creep 
Thro' the green that folds thy grave. 

Let them rave. 

6. 

The gold-eyed kingcups fine; 
The frail bluebell peereth over 
Rare broidry of the purple clover. 

Let them rave. 
Kings have no such couch as thine, 
As the green that folds thy grave. 

Let them rave. 

7. 
Wild words wander here and there ; 
God's great gift of speech abused 
Makes thy memory confused: 

But let them rave. 
The balm-cricket carols clear 
In the green that folds thy grave. 

Let them rave. 



LOVE AND DEATH. 

What time the mighty moon was gathering light 

Love paced the thymy plots of Paradise, 

And all about him roH'd his lustrous eyes ; 

When, turning round a cassia, full in view 

Death, walking all alone beneath a yew. 

And talking to himself, first met his sight: 

"You must begone," said Death, "these walks are 

mine." 
Love wept and spread his sheeny vans for flight ; 
Yet ere he parted said, "This hour is thine: 
Thou art the shadow of life, and as the tree 
Stands in the sun and shadows all beneath, 
So in the light of great eternity 
Life eminent creates the shade of death ; 
The shadow passeth when the tree shall fall, 
But I shall reign forever over all." 



18 



THE BAIiLAD OF ORIANA.— CIRCUMSTANCE.— THE MERMAN. 



THE BALLAD OF ORIANA. 

My heart is wasted with my woe, 

Oriana. 
There is no rest for me below, 

Oriana. 
When the long dun wolds are ribb'd with snow, 
And loud the Norland whirlwinds blow, 

Oriana, 
Alone I wander to and fro, 

Oriana. 

Ere the light on dark was growing, 

Oriana, 
At midnight the cock was crowing, 

Oriana : 
Winds were blowing, waters flowing, 
We heard the steeds to battle going, 

Oriana ; 
Aloud the hollow bugle blowing, 

Oriana. 

In the yew-wood black as night, 

Oriana, 
Ere I rode into the fight, 

Oriana, 
While blissful tears blinded my sight 
By star-shine and by moonlight, 

Oriana, 
I to thee my troth did plight, 

Oriana. 

She stood upon the castle wall, 

Oriana : 
She watch'd my crest among them all, 

Oriana : 
She saw me fight, she heard me call, 
When forth there stept a foeman tall, 

Oriana, 
Atween me and the castle wall, 

Oriana. 

The bitter arrow went aside, 

Oriana : 
The false, false arrow went aside, 

Oriana : 
The damned arrow glanced aside, 
And pierced thy heart, my love, my bride, 

Oriana ! 
Thy heart, my life, my love, my bride, 

Oriana ! 

Oh ! narrow, narrow was the space, 

Oriana. 
Loud, loud rung out the bugle's brays, 

Oriana. 
Oh! deathful stabs were dealt apace, 
The battle deepen'd in its place, 

Oriana ; 
But I was down upon my face, 

Oriana. 

They should have stabb'd me where I lay, 

Oriana ! 
How could I rise and come away, 

Oriana? 
How could I look upon the day ? 
They should have stabb'd me where I lay, 

Oriana — 
They should have trod me into clay, 

Oriana. 

O breaking heart that will not break, 

Oriana! 
O pale, pale face so sweet and meek, 

Oriana ! 
Thou smilest, but thon dost not speak. 
And then the tears run down my cheek, 

Oriana : 



What wantest thou? whom dost thou seek, 
Oriana? 

I cry aloud : none hear my cries, 

Oriana. 
Thou comest atween me and the skies, 

Oriana. 
I feel the tears of blood arise 
Up from my heart unto my eyes, 

Oriana. 
Within thy heart my arrow lies, 

Oriana. 

O cursed hand ! O cursed blow ! 
Oriana ! 

happy thou that liest low, 

Oriana ! 
All night the silence seems to flow 
Beside me in my utter woe, 

Oriana. 
A weary, weary way I go, 

Oriana. 

When Norland winds pipe down the sea, 
Oriana, 

1 walk, I dare not think of thee, 

Oriana. 
Thou liest beneath the greenwood tree, 
I dare not die and come to thee, 

Oriana. 
I hear the roaring of the sea, 

Oriana, 



CIRCUMSTANCE. 

T«o children in two neighbor villages 
Playing mad pranks along the healthy leas; 
Two strangers meeting at a festival ; 
Two lovers whispering by an orchard wall; 
Two lives bound fast in one with golden ease; 
Two graves grass-green beside a gray church-tower, 
Wash'd with still rains and daisy-blossomed; 
Two children in one hamlet born and bred ; 
So runs the round of life from hour to hour. 



THE MERMAN. 

1. 

Who would be 
A merman bold. 
Sitting alone. 
Singing alone 
Under the sea, 
With a crown of gold. 
On a throne? 



I would be a merman bold ; 
I would sit and sing the whole of the day; 
I would fill the sea-halls with a voice of power ; 
But at night I would roam abroad and play 
With the mermaids in and out of the rocks, 
Dressing their hair with the white sea-flower; 
And holding them back by their flowing locks 
I would kiss them often nuder the sea, 
And kiss them again till they kiss'd me 

Laughingly, laughingly ; 
And then we would wander away, away 
To the pale-green sea-groves straight and high. 
Chasing each other merrily. 

3. 

There would be neither moon nor star; 
But the wave would make music above us afar- 
Low thunder and light in the magic night — 
Neither moon nor star. 



THE MERMAID.— SONNET TO J. M. K.— THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 1!) 



We would call aloud in the dreamy dells, 
Call to each other and whoop and cry 

All night, merrily, merrily ; 
They would pelt me with starry spangles and shells, 
Laughing and clapping their hands between. 

All night, merrily, merrily: 
But I would throw to them back in mine 
Turkis and agate and almondine : 
Then leaping out upon them unseen 
I would kiss them often under the sea, 
And kiss them again till they kiss'd me 

Laughingly, laughingly. 
Oh ' what a happy life were mine 
LTnder the hollow-hung ocean green ! 
Soft are the moss-beds under the sea; 
We would live merrily, meriily. 



THE MERMAID. 

1. 
Wuo would be 
A mermaid fair. 
Singing alone. 
Combing her hair 
Under the sea, 
In a golden curl 
With a comb of pearl, 
On a throne? 

2. 
I would be a mermaid fair; 
I would sing to myself the whole of the day ; 
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair; 
And still as I comb'd I would sing and say, 
"Who is it loves me? who loves not me?" 
I would comb ray hair till my ringlets would fall. 
Low adown, low adown, 
From under my starry sea-bud crown 

Low adown and around, 
And I should look like a fountain of gold 
Springing alone 
With a shrill inner sound, 

Over the throne 
In the midst of the hall : 
Till that great sea-snake under the sea 
From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps 
Would slowly trail himself sevenfoVi 
Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate 



With his large calm eyes for the love of me. 
Aud all the mermen under the sea 
Would feel their immortality 
Die in their hearts for the love of me. 



But at night I would wander away, away, 
I would fling on each side my low-flowing locks, 

And lightly vault from the throne and play 
With the mermen in and out of the rocks ; 

We would run to and fro, aud hide and seek, 
On the broad sea-wolds in the crimson shells. 
Whose silvery spikes are nighest the sea. 

But if any came near I would call, and shriek, 

And adown the steep like a wave I would leap 
From the diamond-ledges that jut from the delist ; 

For I would not be kiss'd by all who would list. 

Of the bold merry mermen under the sea ; 

They would sue me, aud woo me, and flatter me, 

In the purple twilights under the sea; 

But the king of them all would carry me, 

Woo me, and win me, and marry me. 

In the branching jaspers under the sea; 

Then all the dry pied things that be 

In the hueless mosses under the sea 

Would curl round my silver feet silently. 

All looking up for the love of me. 

And if I should carol aloud, from aloft 

All things that are forked, and horned, and soft 

Would lean out from the hollow sphere of the sea, 

All looking down for the love of me. 



SONNET TO J. M. K. 

My hope and heart is with thee— thou wilt be 

A latter Luther, and a soldier-priest 

To scare church-harpies from the master's fea«! ; 

Our dusted velvets have much need of thee ; 

Thou art no Sabbath-drawler of old saws, 

Distill'd from some worm-canker'd homily ; 

But spurr'd at heart with fieriest energy 

To embattail and to wall about thy cause 

With iron-worded proof, hating to hark 

The humming of the drowsy pulpit-drone 

Half God's good Sabbath, while the worn-out cleik 

Brow-beats his desk below. Thou from a throne 

Mounted in heaven wilt shoot into the dark 

Arrows of lightnings. I will stand and mark. 



POEMS. 

(Published 1832.) 



[This division of this volume was published in the winter of 1832 
added, which, with one exception, were written in 1833.] 

THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 



PART I. 



On either side the river lie 
Long fields of barley and of rye, 
That clothe the wold and meet the sky ; 
And thro' the field the road runs by 

To many-towered Camelot; 
And up and down the people go, 
Gazing where the lilies blow 
Round an island there below, 

The island of Shalott. 

Willows whiten, aspens quiver, 
Little breezes dusk and shiver 



Some of the poems have been considerably altered. Others have W^n 

Thro' the wave that runs forever 
By the island in the river 

Flowing down to Camelot. 
Four gray walls, and four gray towers. 
Overlook a space of flowers, 
And the silent isle imbowers 

The Lady of Shalott. 

By the margin, willow-veil'd, 
Slide the heavy barges trail'd 
By slow horses ; and unhail'd 
The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd 

Skimming down to Camelot : 
But who hath seen her wave her hand ? 
Or at the casement seen her stand? 
Or is she known in all the laud, 

The Lady of Shalott? « 



20 



THE LADY OF SHALOTT. 




*' ' The curse is come upon ine,' cried 
The Lady of Sbalott." 



Only reapers, reaping early 
In among the bearded barley, 
Hear a song that echoes cheerly 
From the river winding clearly, 

Down to tower'd Camelot: 
And by the moon the reaper weary. 
Piling sheaves in uplands airy, 
Listening, whispers, "'Tis the fairy 

Lady of Shalott." 



PART II. 

Thtsee she weaves by night and day 
A magic web with colors gay. 
She has heard a whisper say, 
A curse is on her if she stay 

To look down to Camelot. 
She knows not what the curse may be, 
And so she weaveth steadily. 
And little other care hath she, 

The Lady of Shalott 

And moving thro' a mirror clear 
That hangs before her all the year. 
Shadows of the world appear. 
There she sees the highway near 

Winding down to Camelot: 
There the river eddy whirls, 
And there the surly village-churls, 
And the red cloaks of market girls, 

Pass onward from Shalott. 

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad. 
An abbot on an ambling pad. 
Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad. 
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad, 

Goes by to tower'd Camelot; 



And sometimes thro' the mirror blue 
The knights come riding two and two: 
She hath no loyal knight and true, 
The Lady of Shalott. 

But in her web she still delights 
To weave the mirror's magic sights. 
For often thro' the silent nights 
A funeral, with plumes and lights. 

And music, went to Camelot: 
Or when the moon was overhead. 
Came two young lovers lately wed ; 
"I am half-sick of shadows," said 

The Lady of Shalott. 



PART III. 

A BOW-SHOT from her bower-eaves, 
He rode between the barley-sheaves, 
The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves, 
And flamed upon the brazen greaves 

Of bold Sir Lancelot. 
A redcross knight forever kneeled 
To a lady in his shield, 
That sparkled on the yellow field, 
• Beside remote Shalott. 

The gemmy bridle glitter'd free. 
Like to some branch of stars we see 
Hung in the golden Galaxy. 
The bridle bells rang merrily 

As he rode down to Camelot: 
And from his blazon'd baldric slung 
A mighty silver bugle hung. 
And as he rode his armor rung. 

Beside remote Shalott. 

All in the blue unclouded weather 
Thick-jeweU'd shone the saddle-leather, 



MAEIANA m THE SOUTH. 



21 



The helmet and the helmet-feather 
Burned like one burning flame together, 

As he rode down to Camelot. 
As often thro' the purple night, 
Below the starry clusters bright, 
Some bearded meteor, trailing light. 

Moves over still Shalott. 

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd ; 
On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode; 
Prom underneath his helmet flow'd 
His coal-black curls as on he rode. 

As he rode down to Camelot. 
From the bank and from the river 
He flashed into the crystal mirror, 
" Tirra lirra," by the river 

Sang Sir Lancelot. 

She left the web, she left the loom, 
She made three paces thro' the room. 
She saw the water-lily bloom. 
She saw the helmet and the plume. 

She look'd down to Camelot. 
Out flew the web and floated wide ; 
The mirror crack'd from side to side ; 
"The curse is come upon me," cried 

The Lady of Shalott. 

PART IV. 

In the stormy east-wind straining, 
The pale yellow woods were waning, 
The broad stream in his banks complaining 
Heavily the low sky raining 

Over tower'd Camelot; 
Down she came and found a boat 
Beneath a willow left afloat, 
And round about the prow she wrote 

The Lady of Shalott. 

And down the river's dim expanse — 
Like some bold seer in a trance, 
Seeing all his own mischance — 
With a glassy countenance 

Did she look to Camelot. 
And at the closing of the day 
She loosed the chain, and down she lay ; 
The broad stream bore her far away, 

The Lady of Shalott. 

Lying, robed in snowy white 
That loosely flew to left and right^- 
The leaves upon her falling light- 
Thro' the noises of the night 

She floated down to Camelot: 
And as the boat-head wound along 
The willow hills and fields among. 
They heard her singing her last song, 

The Lady of Shalott. 

Heard a carol, mournful, holy. 
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly. 
Till her blood was frozen slowly, 
And her eyes were darken'd wholly, 

Turn'd to tower'd Camelot ; 
For ere she reach'd upon the tide 
The first house by the water-side, 
Singing in her song she died. 

The Lady of Shalott. 

Under tower and balcony. 
By garden-wall an* gallery, 
A gleaming shape she floated by, 
A corse between the houses high, 

Silent into Camelot, 
Out upon the wharfs they came. 
Knight and burgher, lord and dame, 
And round the prow they read her name. 

The Lady of Shalott. 



Who is this? and what is here? 
And in the lighted palace near 
Died the sound of royal cheer : 
And they cross'd themselves for fear, 

All the knights at Camelot: 
But Lancelot mused a little space: 
He said, " She has a lovely face : 
God in his mercy lend her grace. 

The Lady of Shalott." 



MARIAJ^A IN THE SOUTH. 

With one black shadow at its feet. 

The house thro' all the level shines. 
Close-latticed to the brooding heat, 

And silent in its dusty vines: 
A faint-blue ridge upon the right, 
An empty river-bed before. 
And shallows on a distant shore, 
In glaring sand and inlets bright. 
But "Ave Mary," made she moan. 

And "Ave Mary," night and morn, 

And "Ah," she sang, " to be all alone. 

To live forgotten, and love forlorn." 

She, as her carol sadder grew. 

From brow and bosom slowly down 
Thro' rosy taper flngers drew 

Her streaming curls of deepest browu 
To left and right, and made appear. 
Still-lighted in a secret shrine. 
Her melancholy eyes divine. 
The home of woe without a tear, 
And "Ave Mary," was her moan, 

"Madonna, sad is night and morn ;" 

And "Ah," she sang, "to be all alone. 

To live forgotten, and love forlorn." 

Till all the crimson changed, and past 

Into deep orange o'er the sea, 
Low on her knees herself she cast. 
Before Our Lady murmur'd she; 
Complaining, " Mother, give me grace 
To help me of my weai-y load," 
And on the liquid mirror glow'd 
The clear perfection of her face. 

" Is this the form," she made her moan, 

"That won his praises night and morn! 
And "Ah," she said, "but I wake alone, 
I sleep forgotten, I wake forlorn." 

Nor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat. 

Nor any cloud would cross the vault. 
But day increased from heat to heat. 

On stony drought and steaming salt; 
Till now at noon she slept again, 
And seem'd knee-deep in mountain grass. 
And heard her native breezes pass. 
And runlets babbling down the glen. 
She breathed in sleep a lower moan. 

And murmuring, as at night and morn, 
She thought, "My spirit is here alone. 
Walks forgotten, and is forlorn." 

Dreaming, she knew it was a dream : 
She felt he was and was not there. 
She woke : the babble of the stream 
Fell, and without the steady glare 
Shrank one sick willow sere and small. 
The river-bed was dusty-white ; 
And all the furnace of the light 
Struck up against the blinding wall. 
She whisper'd, with a stifled moan 

More inward than at nigfit or morn, 
" Sweet Mother, let me not here alone 
Live forgotten and die forlorn." 



ELEANORE. 



And, rising, from her bosom drew 

Old. letters, breathing of her worth, 
For "Love," they said, "must needs be true, 

To what is loveliest upon earth." 
An image seem'd to pass the door. 
To look at her with slight, and say, 
"But now thy beauty flows away, 
So be alone forevermore." 

"O cruel heart," she changed her tone, 
"And cruel love, whose end is scorn, 
Is this the end to be left alone. 
To live forgotten, and die forlorn !" 

But sometimes in the falling day 

An image seem'd to pass the door, 
To look into her eyes and say, 

" But thou Shalt be alone no more." 
And flaming downward over all 
From heat to heat the day decreased, 
And slowly rounded to the east 
The one black shadow from the wall. 

"The day to night," she made her moan, 
"The day to night, the night to morn, 
And day and night I am left alone 
To live forgotten, and love forlorn." 

At eve a dry cicala sung, 

There came a sound as of the sea ; 
Backward the latticed-blind she flung. 

And lean'd upon the balcony. 
There all in spaces rosy-bright 
Large Hesper glitter'd on her tears. 
And deepening through the silent spheres. 
Heaven over Heaven rose the night. 

And weeping then she made her moan, 

" The night comes on that knows not morn, 
When I shall cease to be all alone, 
To live forgotten, and love forlorn." 



ELEANORE. 
1. 

Thy dark eyes open'd not. 

Nor first reveal'd themselves to English air, 

For there is nothing here. 
Which, from the outward to the inward brought, 
Moulded thy baby thought. 
Far off from human neighborhood. 

Thou wert born, on a summer morn, 
A mile beneath the cedar-wood. 
Thy bounteous forehead was not fann'd 

With breezes from our oaken glades, 
But thou wert nursed in some delicious land 

Of lavish lights, and floating shades: 
And flattering thy childish thought 

The oriental fairy brought. 
At the moment of thy birth. 
From old well-heads of haunted rills. 
And the hearts of purple hills, 

And sliadow'd coves on a sunny shore, 
The choicest wealth of all the earth, 

Jewel or shell, or starry ore. 

To deck thy cradle, EleSnore. 

2. 

Or the yellow-banded bees, 
Thro' half-open lattices 
Coming in the scented breeze. 
Fed thee, a child, lying alone, 

With whitest honey in fairy gardens cull'd- 
A glorious chijd, dreaming alone. 
In silk-soft folds, upon yielding down. 
With the hum of swarming bees 
Into dreamful slumber lull'd. 



Who may minister to thee ? 

Summer herself should minister 

To thee, with fruitage golden-rinded 
On golden salvers, or it may be. 

Youngest Autumn, in a bower 

Grape-thicken'd from the light, and blinded 
With many a deep-hued bell-like flower 

Of fragrant trailers, when the air 
Sleepeth over all the heaven, 
And the crag that fronts the Even, 
All along the shadowing shore, 

Crimsons over an inland mere, 
Eleiinore ! 



How may fnll-sail'd verse express, 
How may measured words adore 
The full-flowing harmony 
Of thy swan-like stateliness, 
Eleanore ? 
The luxuriant symmetry 
Of thy floating gracefulness, 
Eleiinore ? 
Every turn and glance of thine. 
Every lineament divine, 

Eleanore, 
And the steady sunset glow, 
That stays upon thee? For in thee 
Is nothing sudden, nothing single : 
Like two streams of incense free 

From one censer, in one shrine. 
Thought and motion mingle. 
Mingle ever. Motions flow 
To one another, even as tho' 
They were modulated so 

To an unheard melody. 
Which lives about thee, and a sweep 

Of richest pauses, evermore 
Drawn from each other mellow-deep; 
Who may express thee, Eleiinore? 



I stand before thee, Eleiinore ; 

I see thy beauty gradually unfold. 
Daily and hourly, more and more. 
I muse, as in a trance, the while 

Slowly, as from a cloud of gold, 
Comes out thy deep ambrosial smile. 
I muse, as in a trance, whene'er 

The languors of thy love-deep eyes 
Float on to me. I would I were 

So tranced, so rapt in ecstasies, 
To stand apart, and to adore, 
Gazing on thee forevermore. 
Serene, imperial Eleiinore ! 

6. 

Sometimes, with most intensity 

Gazing, I seem to see 

Thought folded over thought, smiling asleep. 

Slowly awaken'd, grow so full and deep 

In thy large eyes, that, overpower'd quite, 

I cannot veil, or droop my sight, 

But am as nothing in its light: 

As tho' a star, in inmost heaven set, 

Bv'n while we gaze on it, 

Should slowly round his orb, and slowly grow 

To a full face, there like a sun remain 

Fix'd — then as slowly fade again. 

And draw itself to whftt it was before ; 
So full, so deep, so slow. 
Thought seems to come and go 

In thy large eyes, imperial Eleiinore. 

7. 
As thunder-clouds, that, hung on high, 
Roof'd the world with doubt and fear, 



THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 



23 



FloatiDg thro' an evening atmosphere, 
Grow golden all about the sky; 
lu thee all passion becomes passionless, 
Touch'd by thy spirit's mellowness, 
Losing his fire and active might 

In a silent meditation, 
Falling into a still delight, 

And luxury of contemplation : 
As waves that up a quiet cove 
Rolling slide, and lying still 
Shadow forth the banks at will : 
Or sometimes they swell and move. 
Pressing up against the land. 
With motions of the outer sea : 
And the self-same influence 
Controlleth all the soul and sense 
Of Passion gazing upon thee. 
His bow-string slacken'd, languid Love, 
Leaning his cheek upon his hand, 
Droops both his wings, regarding thee. 
And so would languish evermore, 
Serene, imperial Eleiinore. 



But when I see thee roam, with tresses imconfiued, 
While the amorous, odorous wind 
Breathes low between the sunset and the moon ; 
Or, in a shadowy saloon. 
On silken curtains half reclined ; 

I watch thy grace; and in its place 
My heart a charmed slumber keeps, 

While I muse upon thy face ; 
And a lan'guid fire creeps 
Thro' my veins to all my frame, 
Dissolvingly and slowly: soon 

From thy rose-red lips my name 
Floweth ; and then, as in a swoon. 
With dinning sound my ears are rife, 
My tremulous tongue faltereth, 
I lose my color, I lose my breath, 
I drink the cup of a costly death, 
Brimm'd with delirious draughts of warmest life. 
I die with my delight, before 
I hear what I would hear from thee; 
Yet tell my name again to me, 
I would be dying evermore, 
So dying ever, Eleiinore. 



THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 

I SEE the wealthy miller yet. 

His double chin, his portly size. 
And who that knew him could forget 

The busy wrinkles round his eyes ? 
The slow wise smile that, round about 

His dusty forehead dryly curl'd, 
Seem'd half-within and half-without. 

And full of dealings with the world? 

In yonder chair I see him sit, 

Three fingers round the old silver cup- 
I see his gray eyes twinkle yet 

At his own jest — gray eyes lit up 
With summer lightnings of a soul 

So full of summer warmth, so glad. 
So healthy, sound, and clear and whole, 

His memory scarce can make me sad. 

Yet fill my glass: give me one kiss: 

My own sweet Alice, we must die. 
There's somewhat in this world amiss 

Shall be unriddled by-and-by. 
There's somewhat flows to us in life, 

But more is taken quite away. 
Pray, Alice, pray, my darling wife. 

That we may die the self-same day. 



Have I not found a happy earth? 

I least should breathe a thought of pain. 
Would God renew me from my birth 

I'd almost live my life again. 
So sweet it seems with thee to walk. 

And once again to woo thee mine — 
It seems in after-dinner talk 

Across the walnuts and the wine- 
To be the long and listless boy 

Late-left an orphan of the squire. 
Where this old mansion mounted high 

Looks down upon the village spire: 
For even here, where I and you 

Have lived and loved alone so long, 
Bach morn my sleep was broken thro' 

By some wild skylark's matin-song. 

And oft I heard the tender dove 

In firry woodlands making moan ; 
But ere I saw your eyes, my love, 

I had no motion of my own. 
For scarce my life with fancy play'd 

Before I dream'd that pleasant dream- 
Still hither thither idly sway'd 

Like those long mosses in the stream. 

Or from the bridge I lean'd to hear 

The milldam rushing down with noise, 
And see the minnows everywhere 

In crystal eddies glance and poise, 
The tall flag-flowers when they sprung 

Below the range of stepping-stones. 
Or those three chestnuts near, that hung 

In masses thick with milky cones. 

But, Alice, what an hour was that, 

When after roving in the woods 
('Twas April then), I came and sat 

Below the chestnuts, when their buds 
Were glistening to the breezy blue; 

And on the slope,' an absent fool, 
I cast me down, nor thought of you. 

But angled in the higher pool. 

A love-song I had somewhere read. 

An echo from a measured strain, 
Beat time to nothing in my head 

From some odd corner of the brain. 
It haunted me, the morning long, 

With weary sameness in the rhymes. 
The phantom of a silent song, 

That went and came a thousand times. 

Then leapt a trout. In lazy mood 

I watch'd the little circles die ; 
They past into the level flood. 

And there a vision caught my eye; 
The reflex of a beauteous form, 

A glowing arm, a gleaming neck. 
As when a sunbeam wavers warm 

Within the dark and dimpled beck. 

For you remember, you had set. 

That morning, on the casement's edge 
A long green box of mignonette. 

And you were leaning from the ledge : 
And when I raised my eyes, above 

They met with two so full and bright- 
Such eyes ! I swear to you, my love, 

That these have never lost their light. 

I loved, and love dispell'd the fear 
That I should die an early death ; 

For love possess'd the atmosphere. 
And fill'd J^he breast with purer breath. 

My mother thought. What ails the boy? 
For I was alter'd, and began 



24 



THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. 



To move about the house with joy, 
And with the certain step of man. 

I loved the brimming wave that swam 

Thro' quiet meadows round the mill, 
The sleepy pool above the dam. 

The pool beneath it never still. 
The meal-sacks on the whiten'd floor. 

The dark round of the dripping wheel, 
The very air about the door 

Made misty with the floating meal. 

And oft in ramblings on the wold, 

When April nights began to blow. 
And April's crescent glimmer'd cold, 

I saw the village lights below; 
I knew your taper far away. 

And full at heart of trembling hope, 
From off the wold I came, and lay 

Upon the freshly-flower'd slope. 

The deep brook groan'd beneath the mill: 
And "by that lamp," I thought, "she sits!" 

The white chalk-quarry from the hill 
Gleamed to the flying moon by fits. 

"O that I were beside her now! 

will she answier if I call ? 

would she give me vow for vow. 
Sweet Alice, if I told her all ?" 

Sometimes I saw you sit and spin; 

And, in the pauses of the wind. 
Sometimes I heard you sing within ; 

Sometimes your shadow cross'd the blind. 
At last you rose and moved the light. 

And the long shadow of the chair 
Flitted across into the night. 

And all the casement darken'd there. 

But when at last I dared to speak. 

The lanes, you know, were white with Ma}', 
Your ripe lips moved not, but your cheek 

Flush'd like the, coming of the day ; 
And so it was— half-sly, half-shy. 

You would, and would not, little one ! 
Although I pleaded tenderly, 

And you and I were all alone. 

And slowly was my mother brought 

To yield consent to my desire : 
She wish'd me happy, but she thought 

1 might have look'd a little higher; 
And I was young — too young to wed : 

"Yet must I love her for your sake; 
Go fetch your Alice here," she said : 
Her eyelid quiver'd as she spake. 

And down I went to fetch my bride: 

But, Alice, you were ill at ease ; 
This dress and that by turns you tried. 

Too fearful that you should not please. 

1 loved you better for your fears, 

I knew you could not look but well ; 
And dews, that would have fall'n iu tears, 
I kiss'd away before they fell. 

I watch'd the little flutterings, 

The doubt my mother would not see; 
She spoke at large of many things, 

And at the last she spoke of me ; 
And turning look'd upon your face, 

As near this door you sat apart. 
And rose, and, with a silent grace 

Approaching, press'd you heart to heart. 

Ah, well— but sing the foolish song 
I gave you, Alice, on the day 



When, arm in arm, we went along, 
A pensive pair, and you were gay 

With bridal flowers— that I may seem. 
As in the nights of old, to lie 

Beside the mill-wheel in the stream. 
While those full chestnuts whisper by. 

It is the miller's daughter. 

And she is grown so dear, so dear. 
That I would be the jewel 

That trembles at her ear : 
For hid in ringlets day and night, 
I'd touch her neck so warm and white. 

And I would be the girdle 
About her dainty, dainty waist, 

And her heart would beat against me. 
In sorrow and in rest: 

And I should know if it beat right, 

I'd clasp it round so close and tight. 

And I would be the necklace. 
And all day long to fall and rise 

Upon her balmy bosom. 
With her laughter or her sighs. 

And I would lie so light, so light, 

I scarce should be unclasp'd at night. 



A trifle, sweet ! which true love spells — 

True love interprets — right alone. 
His light upon the letter dwells, 

For all the spirit is his own. , 
So, if I waste words now, in tnith. 

You must blame Love. His early rage 
Had force to make me rhyme in youth. 

And makes me talk too much in age. 

And now those vivid hours are gone, 

Like mine own life to me thou art, 
Where Past and Present, wound in one. 

Do make a garland for the heart: 
So sing that other song I made, 

Half-anger'd with my happy lot. 
The day, when in the chestnut-shade 

I found the blue Forget-me-not. 



Love that hath us in the net. 
Can he pass, and we forget? 
Many suns arise and set. 
Many a chance the years beget. 
Love the gift is Love the debt, 
Even so. 

Love is hurt with jar and fret. 
Love is made a vague regret. 
Eyes with idle tears are wet. 
Idle habit links us yet. 
What is love? for we forget: 
Ah, no ! no ! 



Look thro' mine eyes with thine. True wife, 

Round my true heart thine arms entwine ; 
My other dearer life in life, 

Look thro' my very soul with thine ! 
Untouch'd with any shade of years. 

May those kind eyes forever dwell ! 
They have not shed a many tears. 

Dear eyes, since first I knew them well. 

Yet tears they shed: they had their part 

Of sorrow : for when time was ripe, 
The still afi'ection of the heart 

Became an outward breathing type, 
That into stillness past again. 

And left a want unknown before ; 
Although the loss that brought us pain. 

That loss but made us love the more. 



FATIMA. — CENONE. 



With farther lookings on. The kiss, 

The woven arms, seem but to be 
Weak symbols of the settled bliss, 

The comfort, I have found in thee : 
But that God bless thee, dear— who wrought 

Two spirits to one equal mind — 
With blessings beyond hope or thought, 

With blessings which no words can find. 

Arise, and let us wander forth. 

To yon old mill across the wolds; 
For look, the sunset, south and north, 

Winds all the vale in rosy folds. 
And fires your narrow casement glass, 

Touching the sullen pool below : 
On the chalk-hill the bearded grass 

Is dry and dewless. Let us go. 



FATIMA. 

O Love, Love, Love ! O withering might 1 

sun, that from thy noonday height 
Shudderest when I strain my sight. 
Throbbing thro' all thy heat and light, 

Lo, falling from my constant mind, 

Lo, parch'd and wither'd, deaf and blind, 

I whirl like leaves in roaring wind. 

Last night I wasted hateful hours 
Below the city's eastern towers: 

1 thirsted for the brooks, the showers : 
I roll'd among the tender flowers • 

I crush'd them on my breast, my mouth : 
I look'd athwart the burning drouth 
Of that long desert to the south. 

Last night, when some one spoke his name. 
From my swift blood that went and came 
A thousand little shafts of flame 
Were shiver'd in my narrow frame. 

Love, O fire ! once he drew 

With one long kiss my whole sonl thro' 
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew. 

Before he mounts the hill, I know 
He Cometh quickly: from below 
Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow 
Before him, striking on my brow. 
In my dry brain my spirit soon, 
Down-deepening from swoon to swoon. 
Faints like a dazzled morning moon. - 

The wind sounds like a silver wire. 
And from beyond the noon a fire 
Is pour'd upon the hills, and nighcr 
The skies stoop down in their desire; 
And, isled in sudden seas of light. 
My heart, pierced thro' with fierce delight. 
Bursts into blossom in his sight. 

My whole soul waiting silently. 
All naked in a sultry sky. 
Droops blinded with his shining eye: 
I will possess him or will die. 

1 will grow round him in his place. 
Grow, live, die looking on his face, 
Die, dying clasp'd in his embrace. 



CENONE. 

There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier 

Than all the valleys of Ionian hills. 

The swimming vapor slopes athwart the glen, 

Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine, 

And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand 

The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down 



Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars 
The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine 
In cataract after cataract to the sea. 
Behind the valley topmost Gargarus 
Stands up and takes the morning: but in front 
The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal 
Troas and Ilion's columu'd citadel. 
The crown of Troas. 

Hither came at noon 
Mournful CEnone, wandering forlorn 
Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills. 
Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck 
Floated her hair or seem'd to float in rest. 
She, leaning on a fragment twined with vine, 
Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shade 
Sloped downward to her seat in the upper clift'. 

"O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, 
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
For now the noonday quiet holds the hill : 
The grasshopper is silent in the grass: 
The lizard, with his shadow on the stone. 
Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps. 
The purple flowers droop : the golden bee 
Is lily-cradled: I alone awake. 
My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love. 
My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim. 
And I am all aweary of my life. 

"O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, 
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
Hear me O Earth, hear me O Hills, O Caves 
That house the cold-crown'd snake! O mountaiu 

brooks, 
I am the daughter of a River-God, 
Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all 
My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls 
Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed, 
A cloud that gather'd shape : for it may be 
That, while I speak of it, a little white 
My heart may wander from its deeper woe. 

"O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, 
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
I waited underneath the dawning hills. 
Aloft the mountain lawn was dewy-dark, 
And dewy-dark aloft the mountain pine: 
Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris, 
Leading a jet-black goat white-horn'd, white-hooved. 
Came up from reedy Simois all alone. 

"O mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
Far-off the torrent call'd me from the cleft : 
Far up the solitary morning smote 
The streaks of virgin snow. With down-dropt eyes 
I sat alone : white-breasted like a star 
Fronting the dawn he moved : a leopard skin 
Droop'd from his shoulder, but his sunny hair 
Cluster'd about his temples like a God's; 
And his cheek brighten'd as the foam-bow brightens 
When the wind blows the foam, and all my heart 
Went forth to embrace him coming ere he came. 

"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
He smiled, and opening out his milk-white palm 
Disclosed a fruit of pure Hesperian gold. 
That smelt ambrosially, and while I look'd 
And listen' d, the full flowing river of speech 
Came down upon my heart. 

"'My own (Enone, 
Beautiful-brow'd CEnone, my own soul. 
Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind engrav'n 
"For the most fair," would seem to award it thine, 
As lovelier than whatever Oread haunt 
The knolls of Ida, loveliest in all grace 
Of movement, and the charm of married brows.' 

"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
He prest the blossom of his lips to mine, 



26 



GENONE. 



And added, 'This was cast upon the board, 
When all the full-faced presence of the Gods 
Ranged in the halls of Peleus ; whereupon 
Rose feud, with question unto whom 'twere due : 
But light-foot Iris brought it yester-eve, 
Delivering, that to me, by common voice 
Elected umpire, Her6 comes to-day, 
Pallas and Aphrodite, claiming each 
This meed of fairest. Thou, within the cave 
Behind yon whispering tuft of oldest pine, 
Mayst well behold them uubeheld, nnheard 
Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods.' 

"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
It was the deep midnoon: one silvery cloud 
Had lost his way between the piny sides 
Of this long glen. Then to the bower they came. 
Naked they came to that smooth-swarded bower. 
And at their feet the crocus brake like fire, 
Violet, amaracus, and asphodel. 
Lotos and lilies : and a wind arose. 
And overhead the wandering ivy and vine. 
This way and that, in many a wild festoon 
Ran riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs 
With bunch and berry and flower thro' and thro.' 

"O mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
On the tree-tops a crested peacock lit. 
And o'er him flow'd a golden cloud, and lean'd 
Upon him, slowly dropping fragrant dew. 
Then first I heard the voice of her, to whom 
Coming thro' Heaven, like a light that grows 
Larger and clearer, with one mind the Gods 
Rise up for reverence. She to Paris made 
Proffer of royal power, ample rule 
Unquestion'd, overflowing revenue 
Wherewith to embellish state, 'from many a vale 
And river-sunder'd champaign clothed with corn. 
Or labor'd mfnes undrainable of ore. 
Honor,' she said, ' and homage, tax and toll. 
From many an inland town and haven large, 
Mast-throng'd beneath her shadowing citadel 
In glassy bays among her tallest towers.' 

"O mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
Still she spake on and still she spake of power, 
' Which in all action is the end of all ; 
Power fitted to the season ; wisdom-bred 
And throned of wisdom — ^from all neighbor crowns 
Alliance and allegiance, till thy hand 
Fail from the sceptre-stafF. Such boon from me. 
From me. Heaven's Queen, Paris, to thee king-born, 
A shepherd all thy life but yet king-born. 
Should come most welcome, seeing men, in power 
Only, are likest gods, who have attaiu'd 
Rest in a happy place and quiet seats 
Above the thunder, with undying bliss 
In knowledge of their own supremacy.' 

"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
She ceased, and Paris held the costly fruit 
Out at arm's-length, so much the thought of power 
Flatter'd his spirit; but Pallas where she stood 
Somewhat apart, her clear and bared limbs 
O'erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear 
Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold. 
The while, above, her full and earnest eye 
Over her snow-cold breast and angry cheek 
Kept watch, waiting decision, made reply. 

" 'Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, 
These three alone lead life to sovereign power. 
Yet not for power, (power of herself 
Would come uncall'd for) but to live by law, 
Acting the law we live by without fear; 
And, because right is right, to follow right 
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.' 



"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
Again she said: 'I woo thee not with gifts. 
Sequel of guerdon could not alter me 
To fairer. Judge thou me by what I am, 
So Shalt thou find me fau-est. 

Yet, indeed, 
If gazing on divinity disrobed 
Thy mortal eyes are frail to judge of fair, 
Unbiass'd by self-profit, oh ! rest thee sure 
That I shall love thee well and cleave to thee, 
So that my vigor, wedded to thy blood. 
Shall strike within thy pulses, like a God's, 
To push thee forward thro' a life of shocks. 
Dangers, and deeds, until endurance grow 
Sinew'd with action, and the full-grown will, 
Circled thro' all experiences, pure law, 
Commeasure perfect freedom.' 

"Here she ceased, 
And Paris ponder'd, aud I cried, ' O Paris, 
Give it to Pallas !' but he heard me not, 
Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me I 

"O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, 
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
Idalian Aphrodite beautiful, 
Fresh as the foam, new-bathed in Paphian we\h, 
With rosy slender fingers backward drew 
From her warm brows and bosom her deep hair 
Ambrosial, golden round her lucid throat 
Aud shoulder: from the violets her light foot 
Shone rosy-white, and o'er her rounded form 
Between the shadows of the vine-bunches 
Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved. 

"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes. 
The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh 
Half-whisper'd in his ear, ' I promise thee 
The fairest and most loving wife in Greece.' 
She spoke and laughed : I shut my sight for fear : 
But when I look'd, Paris had raised his arm. 
And I beheld great Hero's angry eyes. 
As she withdrew into the golden cloud. 
And I was left alone vrithin the bower ; 
And from that time to this I am alone. 
And I shall be alone until I die. 

"Yet, mother Ida, hearken ere I die. 
Fairest— why fairest wife? am I not fair? 
My love hath told me so a thousand times. 
Methiuks I must be fair, for yesterday. 
When I passed by, a wild and wanton pard, 
Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail 
Crouch'd fawning in the weed. Most loving is she ? 
Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms 
Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest 
Close, close to thine in that quick-falling dew 
Of fruitful kisses,, thick as Autumn rains 
Flash in the pools of whirling Simois. 

" O mother, hear me yet before I die. 
They came, they cut away my tallest pines. 
My dark tall pines, that plumed the craggy ledge 
High over the blue gorge, and all between 
The snowy peak and snow-white cataract 
Foster' d the callow eaglet — from beneath 
Whose thick mysterious bows in the dark morn 
The panther's roar came muflled, while I sat 
Low in the valley. Never, never more 
Shall lone OSnone see the morning mist 
Sweep thro' them ; never see them overlaid 
With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud. 
Between the loud stream and the trembling stars. 

" O mother, hear me yet before I die. 
I wish that somewhere in the rnin'd folds, 
Among the fragments tumbled from the glens, 
Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her. 
The Abominable, that uninvited came 



THE SISTERS.— TO 



-THE PALACE OF ART. 



27 



Into the fair Peleian banquet-hall, 

And catet the golden fruit upon the board, 

And bred this change; that I might speak my mind, 

And tell her to her face how much I hate 

Her presence, hated both of Gods and men. 

" O mother, hear me yet before I die. 
Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times. 
In this green valley, under this green hill, 
Ev'n on this hand, and sitting on this stone? 
Seal'd it with kisses? water'd it with tears? 
O happy tears, and how unlike to these ! 
O happy Heaven, how canst thou see my face ? 
O happy earth, how canst thou bear my weight ? 

death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud, 
There are enough unhappy on this earth. 
Pass by the happy souls, that love to live: 

1 pray thee, pass before my light of life, 
And shadow all my soul, that I may die. 
Thou weighest heavy on the heart within. 
Weigh heavy on my eyelids : let me die. 

"O mother, hear me yet before I die. 
I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts 
Do shape themselves within me, more and more. 
Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear 
Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills, 
Like footsteps upon wool. I dimly see 
My far-oflf doubtful purpose, as a mother 
Conjectures of the features of her child 
Ere it is born : her child ! a shudder comes 
Across me : never child be born of me, 
Unblest, to vex me with his father's eyes ! 

"O mother, hear me yet before I die. 
Hear me, O earth. I will not die alone. 
Lest their shrill happy laughter come to me 
Walking the cold and starless road of Death 
Uncomforted, leaving my ancient love 
With the Greek woman. I will rise and go 
Down into Troy, and ere the stars come forth 
Talk with the wild Cassandra, for she says 
A fire dances before her, and a sound 
Rings ever in her ears of armed men. 
What this may be I know not, but I know 
That, wheresoe'er I am by night and day. 
All earth and air seem only burning fire." 



THE SISTERS. 

We were two daughters of one race : 
She was the fairest in the face : ^ 

The wind is blowing in turret and tree. 
They were together, aud she fell; 
Therefore revenge became me well. 

O the Earl was fair to see 1 

She died : she went to burning flame : 
She mix'd her ancient blood with shame. 

The wind is howling in turret and tree. 
M^hole weeks and months, and early and late, 
To win his love I lay in wait : 

O the Earl was fair to see 1 

I made a feast ; I bade him come ; 
I won his love, I brought him home. 

The wind is roaring in turret and tree. 
And after supper, on a bed, 
Upon my lap he laid his head : 

O the Earl was fair to see ! 

I kiss'd his eyelids into rest : 
His ruddy cheek upon my breast. 

The wind is raging in turret and tree. 
I hated him with the hate of hell, 
But I loved his beauty passing well. 

O the Earl was fair to see I 



I rose up in the silent night : 

I made my dagger sharp and bright. 

The wind is raving in turret and tree. 
As half-asleep his breath he drew. 
Three tinjes I stabb'd him thro' and thro'. 

O the Earl was fair to see ! 

I curl'd and comb'd his comely head. 
He look'd so grand when he was dead. 

The wind is blowing in turret and tree. 
I wrapt his body in the sheet, 
Aud laid him at his mother's feet. 

O the Earl was fair to see ! 



TO 



WITH THE FOLLOWING POEM. 

I SEND you here a sort of allegory, 

(For you will understand it) of a soul, 

A sinful soul possess' d of many gifts, 

A spacious garden full of flowering weeds, 

A glorious Devil, litrge in heart and brain, 

That did love Beauty only, (Beauty seen 

In all varieties of mould and mind,) 

And Knowledge for its beauty ; or if Good, 

Good only for its beauty, seeing not 

That Beauty, Good, and Knowledge are three sisters 

That doat upon each other, friends to man, 

Living together under the same roof. 

And never can be sunder'd without tears. 

And he that shuts Love out, in turn shall be 

Shut out from Love, and on her threshold lie 

Howling in outer darkness. Not for this 

Was common clay ta'en from the common earth, 

Moulded by God, and temper'd with the tears 

Of angels to the perfect shape of man. 



THE PALACE OF ART. 

I BmLT my soul a lordly pleasure-house. 

Wherein at ease for aye to dwell. 
I said, "O Soul, make merry and carouse. 
Dear soul, for all is well." 

A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnish'd brass, 

I chose. The ranged ramparts bright 
From level meadow-bases of deep grass 
Suddenly scaled the light. 

Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf 

The rock rose clear, or winding stair. 
My soul would live alone unto herself 
In her high palace there. 

And "while the world runs round and round," I said, 

"Eeign thou apart, a quiet king. 
Still as, while Saturn whirls, his steadfast shade 
Sleeps on his luminous ring." 

To which my soul made answer readily: 

"Trust me, in bliss I shall abide 
In this great mansion, that is built for me. 
So royal-rich and wide." 



Four courts I made. East, West and South and North, 

In each a squared lawn, wherefrom 
The golden gorge of dragons spouted forth 
A flood of fountain-foam. 

And round the cool green courts there ran a row 

Of cloisters, branch'd like mighty woods, 
Echoing all night to that sonorous flow 
Of spouted fountain-floods. 



28 



THE PALACE OF AUT. 



Aud round the roofs a gilded gallery 

That lent broad verge to distant lands, 
Far as the wild swan wings, to where the sky 
Dipt down to sea and sands. 

From those four jets four currents in one swell 

Across the mountain stream'd below 
In misty folds, that floating as they fell 
Lit up a torrent-bow. 

And high on every peak a statue seem'd 

To hang on tiptoe, tossing up 
A cloud of incense of all odor steam'd 
From out a golden cup. 

So that she thought, " And who shall gaze upon 

My palace with unblinded eyes. 
While this great bow will waver in the sun, 
And that sweet incense rise ?" 

For that sweet incense rose and never fail'd. 

And, while day sank or mounted higher, 
The light aerial gallery, golden-rail'd, 
Burnt like a fringe of fire. ^ 

Likewise the deep-set windows, stain'd and traced, 

Would seem slow-flaming crimson fires 
From shadow'd grots of arches interlaced. 
And tipt with frost-like spires. 



Full of long-sounding corridors it was. 

That over-vaulted grateful gloom. 
Thro' which the live-long day my soul did pass. 
Well-pleased, from room to room. 

Full of great rooms and small the palace stood. 

All various, each a perfect whole 
From living Nature, fit for every mood 
And change of my still soul. 

For some were hung with arras green and blue, 

Showing a gaudy summer-morn. 
Where with puflf'd cheek the belted hunter blew 
His wreathed bugle-horn. 

One seem'd all dark and red,— a tract of sand, 

And some one pacing there alone. 
Who paced forever in a glimmering land. 
Lit with a low large moon. 

One show'd an iron coast and angry waves. 

You seem'd to hear them climb and fall 
And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves, 
Beneath the windy wall. 

And one, a full-fed river winding slow 

By herds upon an endless plain. 
The ragged rims of thunder brooding low. 
With shadow-streaks of rain. 

And one, the reapers at their sultry toil. 

In front they bound the sheaves. Behind 
Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil, 
And hoary to the wind. 

And one, a foreground black with stones and slags. 

Beyond, a line of heights, and higher 
All barr'd with long white cloud the scornful crags, 
And highest, snow and fire. 

And one, an English home,— gray twilight pour'd 

On de'wy pastures, dewy trees. 
Softer than sleep,— all things in order stored, 
A haunt of ancient Peace. 



Nor these alone, but every landscape fair, 

As fit for every m9od of mind. 
Or gay, or grave, or sweet, or stern, was there. 
Not less than truth design'd. 



Or the maid-mother by a crucifix. 
In tracts of pasture sunny-warm, 
Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx 
Sat smiling, babe in arm. 

Or in a clear-wall'd city on the sea. 
Near gilded organ-pipes, her hair 
Wound with white roses, slept St. Cecily; 
An angel looked at her. 

Or thronging all one porch of Paradise, 

A group of Houris bow'd to see 
The dying Islamite, with hands and eyes 
That said, We wait for thee. 

Or mythic Uther's deeply-wounded son 
In some fair space of sloping greens 
Lay, dozing in the vale of Avalon, 
And watch'd by weeping queens. 

Or hollowing one hand against his ear, 

To list a footfall, ere he saw 
The wood-nymph, stay'd the Ausonian king to hear 
Of wisdom and of law. 

Or over hills with peaky tops engrail'd, 

And many a tract of palm and rice. 
The throne of Indian Cama slowly sail'd 
A summer fann'd with spice. 

Or sweet Europa's mantle blew unclasp'd, 
From off' her shoulder backward borne : 
From one hand droop'd a crocus: one hand grasp'd 
The mild bull's golden horn. 

Or else flushed Gans^nede, his rosy thigh 

Half-buried in the Eagle's down, 
Sole as a flying star shot thro' the sky 
Above the pillar'd town. 

Nor these alone: but every legend fair 
Which the supreme Caucasian mind 
Carved out of Nature for itself, was there. 
Not less than life, design'd. 



Then in the towers I placed great bells that svrang, 

Moved of themselves, with silver sound ; 
And with choice paintings of wise men I hung 
The royal dais round. 

For there was Milton like a seraph strong, 
Beside him Shakespeare bland and mild; 
And there the world-worn Dante grasp'd his song. 
And somewhat grimly smiled. 

And there the Ionian father of the rest ; 

A million wrinkles carved his skin; 
A hundred winters snow'd upon his breast. 
From cheek and throat and chin. 

Above, the fair hall-ceiling stately-set 

Many an arch high up did lift. 
And angels rising and descending met 
With interchange of gift. 

Below was all mosaic choicely plann'd 
With cycles of the human tale 



THE PALACE OF AET. 



29 




*' A group of Houris bowed to see 
The dying Islauiite." 



Of this wide world, the times of every land 
So wrought, they will not fail. 

The people here, a beast of burden slow, 

Toil'd onward, prick'd with goads and stings ; 
Here play'd a tiger, rolling to and fro 
The heads and crowns of kings ; 

Here rose an athlete, strong to break or bind 

All force in bonds that might endure, 
And here once more like some sick man declin'd, 
And trusted any cure. 

But over these she trod: and those great bells 

Began to chime. She took her throne : 
She sat betwixt the shining Oriels, 
To sing her songs alone. 

And thro' the topmost Oriels' color'd flame 

Two godlike faces gazed below; 
Plato the wise, and large-brow'd Verulam, 
The first of those who know. 

And all those names, that in their motion were 

Full-welling fountain-heads of change. 
Betwixt the slender shafts were blazon'd fair 
In diverse raiment strange : 

Thro' which the lights, rose, amb er, emerald, blue, 

Flush'd in her temples and her eyes. 
And from her lips, as morn from Memnon, drew 
Rivers of melodies. 

No nightingale delighteth to prolong 

Her low preamble all alone. 
More than my soul to hear her echo'd song 
Throb thro' the ribbed stone ; 

Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth, 

Joying to feel herself alive. 
Lord over Nature, Lord of the visible earth, 
Lord of the senses five ; 



Communing with herself: "All these are mine, 

And let the world have peace or wars, 
'Tis one to me." She— when young night divine 
Crown'd dying day with stars, 

Making sweet close of his delicious toils — 

Lit light in wreaths and anadems. 
And pure quintessences of precious oils 
In hollow'd moons of gems. 

To mimic heaven ; and clapt her hands and cried, 

" I marvel if my still delight 
In this great house so royal-rich, and wide, 
Be flatter'd to the height. 

" O all things fair to sate my various eyes ! 

shapes and hues that please me well ! 

silent faces of the Great and Wise, 

My Gods, with whom I dwell ! 

"O God-like isolation which art mine, 

1 can but count thee perfect gain. 

What time I watch the darkening droves of swine 
That range on yonder plain. 

"In filthy sloughs they roll a prurient skin. 
They graze and wallow, breed and sleep ; 
And oft some brainless devil enters in. 
And drives them to the deep." 

Then of the moral instinct would she prate, 

And of the rising from the dead, 
As hers by right of full-accomplish'd Fate ; 
And at the last she said: 

"I take possession of man's mind and deed. 
I care not what the sects may brawl. 

1 sit as God holding no form of creed, 

But contemplating all." 



r,o 



LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE. 



Full oft the riddle of the painful earth 

Flash'd thro' her as she sat alone, 
Yet not the less held she her solemn mirth, 
And intellectual throne. 

And so she throve and prosper'd: so three years 

She prosper'd : on the fourth she fell, 
Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears, 
Struck thro' with pangs of hell. 

Lest she should fail and perish utterly, 

God, before whom ever lie bare 
The abysmal deeps of Personality, 
Plagued her with sore despair. 

When she would think, where'er she turn'd her sight, 

The airy hand confusion wrought. 
Wrote "Mene, mene," and divided quite 
The kingdom of her thought. 

Deep dread and loathing of her solitiide 

Fell on her, from which mood was born 
Scorn of herself; again, from out that mood 
Laughter at her self-scorn. 

"What lis not this my place of strength," she said, 

"My spacious mansion built for me. 
Whereof the strong foundation-stones were laid 
Since my first memory?" 

But in dark corners of her palace stood 

LTncertain shapes ; and unawares 
On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood, 
And horrible nightmares, 

And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame, 

And, with dim fretted foreheads all. 
On corpses three-months old at noon she came, 
That stood against the wall. 

A spot of dull stagnation, without light 

Or power of movement, seem'd my soul, 
'Mid onward-sloping motions infinite 
Making for one sure goal. 

A still salt pool, lock'd in with bars of sand ; 

Left on the shore ; that hears all night 
The plunging seas draw backward from the land 
Their moon-led waters white. 

A star that with the choral starry dance 

Join'd not, but stood, and standing saw 
The hollow orb of moving Circumstance 
Roll'd round by one flx'd law. 

Back on herself her serpent pride had curl'd. 
"No voice," she shriek'd in that lone hall, 
"No voice breaks thro' the stillness of this world: 
One deep, deep silence all 1" 

She, mouldering with the dull earth's mouldering sod, 

Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame, 
Lay there exiled from eternal God, 
Lost to her place and name ; 

And death and life she hated equally. 

And nothing saw, for her despair. 
But dreadful time, dreadful eternity. 
No comfort anywhere; 

Remaining utterly confused with fears, 

And ever worse with growing time. 
And ever unrelieved by dismal tears. 
And all alone in crime: 

Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round 

With blackness as a solid wall. 
Far off she seem'd to hear the dully sound 
Of human footsteps fall. 



As in strange lands a traveller walking slow, 

In doubt and great perplexity, 
A little before moon-rise hears the low 
Moan of an unknown sea ; 

And knows not if it be thunder or a sound 

Of rocks thrown down, or one deep cry 
Of great wild beasts ; then thinketh, " I have found 
A new land, but I die." 

She howl'd aloud, "I am on fire within. 

There comes no murmur of reply. 
What is it that will take away my sin, 
And save me lest I die?" 

So when four years were wholly finished, 

She threw her royal robes away, 
"Make me a cottage in the vale," she said, 
"Where I may mourn and pray. 

" Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are 

So lightly, beautifully built : 
Perchance I may return with others there 
When I have purged my guilt." 



LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE. 

Lat)t Clara Vere de Vere, 

Of me you shall not win renown : 
You thought to break a country heart 

For pastime, ere you went to town. 
At me you smiled, but unbeguiled 

I saw the snare, and I retired: 
The daughter of a hundred Earls, 

You are not one to be desired. 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

I know you proud to bear your name. 
Your pride is yet no mate for mine. 

Too proud to care from whence I came. 
Nor would I break for your sweet sake 

A heart that doats on truer charms. 
A simple maiden in her flower 

Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms. 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

Some meeker pupil you must find. 
For were you queen of all that is, 

I could not stoop to such a mind. 
Y'ou sought to prove how I could love, 

And my disdain is my reply. 
The lion on your old stone gates 

Is not more cold to you than I. 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

You put strange memories in my head. 
Not thrice your branching limes have blown 

Since I beheld young Laurence dead. 
Oh your sweet eyes, your low replies: 

A great enchantress you may be ; 
But there was that across his throat 

Which you had hardly cared to see. 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 

When thus he met his mother's view, 
She had the passions of her kind, 

She spake some certain truths of you. 
Indeed I heard one bitter word 

That scarce is fit for you to hear ; 
Her manners had not that repose 

Which sUmps the caste of Vere de Vere. 

Lady Clara Vere de Verp, 

There stands a spectre in your hall: 
The guilt of blood is at your door : 

Y'ou changed a wholesome heart to gall. 



THE MAY QUEEN. 



31 



You held your course without remorse, 
To make him trust his modest worth, 

Aud, last, you flx'd a vacant stare. 
And slew him with your noble birth. 

Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, 

From yon blue heavens above ns bent 
The grand old gardener and his wil'e 

Smile at the claims of long descent. 
Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 

'Tis only noble to be good. 
Kind hearts are more than coronets, 

And simple faith than Norman blood. 

I know you, Clara Vere de Vere: 
You pine among your halls and towers : 



The languid light of your proud eyes 

Is wearied of the rolling hours. 
In glowing health, with boundless wealth. 

But sickening of a vague disease, 
You know so ill to deal with time, 

You needs must play such pranks as these. 

Clara, Clara Vere de Vere, 

If Time be heavy on your hands. 
Are there no beggars at your gate, 

Nor any poor about your lands? 
Oh ! teach the orphan-boy to read, 

Or teach the orphan-girl to sew, 
Pray Heaven for a human heart, 

Aud let the foolish yeoman go. 



THE MAY QUEEN. 




" You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear.' 



You must wake and call we early, call me early, mother dear ; 

To-morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year; 

Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest merriest day ; 

For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. 

There's many a black black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine ; 

There's Margaret and Mary, there's Kate and Caroline : 

But none so fair as little Alice in all the land they say, 

So I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. 

I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake, 

If you do not call me loud when the day begins to break r 

But I must gather knots of flowers, and buds and garlands gay, 

For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. 

As I came up the valley whom think ye should I see, 

But Robin leaning on the bridge beneath the hazel-tree? 

He thought of that sharp look, mother, I gave him yesterday,— 

But I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the Maj'. 

He thought I was a ghost, mother, for I was all in white. 
And I ran by him without speaking, like a flash of light. 
They call me cruel-hearted, but I care not what they say. 
For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. 

They say he's dying all for love, bnt that can nevfl^^'e : 

They say his heart is breaking, mother— what is that to me ? 

There's many a bolder lad 'ill woo me any summer day. 

And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. 



32 



NEW-YEAR'S EVE. 



Little Effle shall go with me to-morrow to the green. 

And you'll be there, too, mother, to see me made the Queen ; 

For the shepherd lads on every side 'ill come from far away. 

And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. 

The honeysuckle round the porch has wov'n its wavy bowers, 
And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo-flowers ; 
And the wild marsh-marigold shines Uke fire in swamps and hollows gray. 
And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. 

The night-winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow-grass. 
And the happy stars above them seem to brighten as they pass ; 
There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the livelong day. 
And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. 

All the valley, mother, 'ill be fresh and green and still. 

And the cowslip and the crowfoot are over all the hill, 

And the rivulet in the flowery dale 'ill merrily glance and play. 

For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. 

So you must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear. 
To-morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year : 
To-morrow 'ill be of all the year the maddest merriest day, 
For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. 



NEW-YEAR'S EVE. 

If you're waking, call me early, call me early, mother dear, 

For I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year. 

It is the last New-year that I shall ever see. 

Then you may lay me low i' the mould and think no more of me. 

To-night I saw the sun set: he set and left behind 
The good old year, the dear old time, and all my peace of mind ; 
And the New-year's coming up, mother, but I shall never see 
The blossom on the blackthorn, the leaf upon the tree. 

Last May we made a crown of flowers : we had a merry day ; 
Beneath the hawthorli on the green they made me Queen of May ; 
And we danced about the may-pole and in the hazel copse, 
Till Charles's Wain came out above the tall white chimney-tops. 

"There's not a flower on all the hills ; the frost is on the pane : 
I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again : 
I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high: 
I long to see a flower so before the day I die. 

The building rook 'ill caw from the windy tall elm-tree, 

And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea, 

And the swallow 'ill come back again with summer o'er the wave, 

But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave. 




' Last Mfty we made a crown of flowers, we had a merry day ; 
Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen of May." 



CONCLUSION. 33 



Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine, 
In the early early morning the sumnier sun 'ill shine, 
Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill. 
When you are warm-asleep, mother, knd all the world is still. 

When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light 
You'll never see me more in the long gray fields at night ; 
When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool 
On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool. 

You'll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade, 
And you'll come sometimes and see me where I am lowly laid. 
I shall not forget you, mother, I shall hear you when you pass, 
With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass. 

I have been wild and wayward, but you'll forgive me now ; 
You'll kiss me, my own mother, and forgive me ere I go ; 
Nay, nay, you must not weep, nor let your grief be wild. 
You should not fret for me, mother, you have another child. 

If I can I'll come again, mother, from out my resting-place ; 
Tho' you'll not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face ; 
Tho' I cannot speak a word, I shall hearken what you say, 
And be often, often with you when you think I'm far away. 

Good-night, good-night, when I have said good-night forevermore, 
And you see me carried out from the threshold of the door ; 
Don't let Effle come to see me till my grave be growing green ; 
She'll be a better child to you than ever I have been. 

She'll find my garden-tools upon the granary floor; 
Let her take 'em : they are hers : I shall never garden more : 
But tell her, when I'm gone, to train the rose-bush that I set 
About the parlor-window and the box of mignonette. 

Good-night, sweet mother ; call me before the day is bom, 
All night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at morn ; 
But I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year, 
So, if you're waking, call me, call me early, mother dear. 



CONCLUSION. 

I THOUGHT to pass away before, and yet alive I am ; 

And in the lields all round I hear the bleating of the lamb. 

How sadly, I remember, rose the morning of the year ! 

To die before the snowdrop came, and now the violet's here. 

O sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies, 
And sweeter is the young lamb's voice to me that cannot rise, 
And sweet is all the land about, an^ all the flowers that blow, 
And sweeter far is death than life to me that long to go. 

It seem'd so hard at first, mother, to leave the blessed sun, 
And now it seems as hard to stay, and yet His will be done ! 
But still I think it can't be long before I find release ; 
And that good man, the clergyman, has told me words of peace. 

O blessings on his kindly voice and on his silver hairl 

And blessings on his whole life long, until he meet me there ! 

blessings on his kindly heart and on his silver head ! 
A thousand times I blest him, as he knelt b^ide my bed. 

He taught me all the mercy, for he show'd me all the sin. 
Now, tho' my lamp was lighted late, there's One will let me in ; 
Nor would I now be well, mother, again, if that could be, 
For my desire is but to pass to Him that died for me. 

1 did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death-watch beat, 
There came a sweeter token when the night and morning meet; 
But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in mine. 
And Efiie on the other side, and I will tell the sign. 

All in the wild March-moming I heard the angels call; 
It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all ; 
The trees be^'aii to whisper, and the wind began to roll. 
And in the wild March-moming I heard them call my soul. 
3 



34 



CONCLUSION. 




* But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in n 
And EHie on the other side, and 1 will tell the sign.*' 



For lying broad awake I thought of you and EfBe dear; 
I saw you sitting in the house, and I no louger here ; 
With all my strength I pray'd for both, and so I felt resigned, 
And up the valley came a swell of music on the wind. 

I thought that it was fancy, and I listen'd in my bed. 
And then did something speak to me — I know not what was said; 
For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my mind. 
And up the valley came again the music on the wind. 

But you were sleeping; and I said, "It's not for them: it's mine." 
And if it comes three times, I thought, I take it for a sign. 
And once again it came, and close beside the window-bars, 
Then seem'd to go right up to Heaven and die among the stars. 

So now I think my time is negf. I trust it is. I know 
The blessed music went that way my soul will have to go. 
And for myself, indeed, I care not if I go to-day. 
But Eflie, you must comfort her when I am past awa}'. 




' And say to Rohin a kind word, and tell him not to fret ; 
There's many worthier than I, would make him liajn y yet,' 



i 



THE LOTOS-EATERS. 



And say to Robin a kind word, and tell hira not to fret ; 
There's many worthier than I, would make him happy yet. 
If I had lived— I cannot tell— I might have been his wife ; 
But all these things have ceased to be, with my desire of life. 

O look ! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow ; 
He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know. 
And there I move no longer now, and there his light may shine- 
Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine. 

O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done 
The voice, that now is speaking, may be beyond the sun — 
For ever and for ever with those just souls and true — 
And what is life, that we should moan f why make we such ado 1 

For ever and for ever, all in a blessed home — 

And there to wait a little while till you and Effle come — 

To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast— 

And the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. 



THE LOTOS-EATERS. 

" Courage !" he said, and pointed toward the land, 
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon." 
In the afternoon they came unto a land. 
In which it seemed always afternoon. 
All round the coast the languid air did swoon, 
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream. 
Fnll-faced above the valley stood the moon ; 
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream 
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem. 

A land of streams ! some, like a downward smoke. 

Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go ; 

And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke. 

Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below. 

They save the gleaming river seaward flow 

From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops, 

Three silent pinnacles of aged snow. 

Stood sunset-flushed : and, dew'd with showery drops, 

Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse. 

The charmed sunset Ibger'd low adown 

In the red West : thro' mountain clefts the dale 

Was seen far inland, and the yellow down 

Borrler'd with palm, and many a winding vale 

And meadow, set with slender galingale : 

A land where all things always seem'd the same ! 

And round about the keel with fiices pale, 

Dark faces pale against that rosy flame. 

The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came. 

Branches they bore of that enchanted stem. 

Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave 

To each, but whoso did receive of them, 

And taste, to him the gushing of the wave 

Far far away did seem to mourn and rave 

On alien shores ; and if his fellow spake. 

His voice was thin, as voices from the grave ; 

And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake. 

And music in his ears his beating heart did make. 

They sat them down upon the yellow sand. 
Between the sun and moon upon the shore ; 
And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland, 
Of child, and wife, and slave ; but evermore 
Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar. 
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam. 
Then some one said, "We will return no more;" 
And all at once they sang, "Onr island home 
If fiir beyond the wave; we will no longer roam." 

CHORIC SONG. 
1. 
Three is sweet music here that softer falls 
Than petals from blown roses on the grass, 



Or night-dews on still waters between walls 

Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass ; 

Music that geutlier on the spirit lies, 

Thau tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes : 

Music that brings sweet sleep down from the h\Ux- 

ful skies. 
Here are cool mosses deep. 
And thro' the moss the ivies creep. 
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep, 
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep. 

2. 
Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness, 
And utterly consumed with sharp distress. 
While all things else have rest from weariness ? 
All things have rest: why should we toil alone. 
We only toil, who are the first of things, 
And make perpetual moan, 
Still from oue sorrow to another thrown : 
Nor ever fold our wings. 
And cease from wanderings, 
Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm : 
Nor hearken what the inner spirit sings, 
"There is no joy but calm!" 

Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of 
things ? 



Lo ! in the middle of the wood, 

The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud 

With winds upon the branch, and there 

Grows green and broad, and takes no care, 

Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon 

Nightly dew-fed ; and turning yellow 

Falls, and floats adown the air. 

Lo ! sweeteu'd with the summer light, 

The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow. 

Drops in a silent autumn night. 

All its allotted length of days. 

The flower ripens in its place. 

Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil. 

Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil. 



Hateful is the dark-blue sky. 
Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea. 
Death is the end of life ; ah, why 
Should life all labor be ? 
Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast. 
And in a little while our lips are dumb. 
Let us alone. What is it that will last ? 
All things are taken from ng, and become 
Portions and parcels of th«Breadful Past. 
Let us alone. What pleasure^ can we have 
To war with evil ? Is there any peace 



36 



A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 



In ever climbiug up the climbing wave? 
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave 
In silence; ripen, fall and cease: 
Give US "long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful 
ease. 

5. 
How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream, 
With half-shut eyes ever to seem 
Falling asleep in a half-dream ! 
To dream and dream, like yonder amber light, 
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height ; 
To hear each other's whisper'd speech; 
Eating the Lotos day by day, 
To watch the crisping ripples on the beach. 
And tender curving lines of creamy spray ; 
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly 
To the influence of mild-minded melancholy; 
To muse and brood and live again in memory. 
With those old faces of our infancy 
Heap'd over with a mound of grass. 
Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of 
brass ! 

6. 
Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, 
And dear the last embraces of our wives 
And their warm tears : but all hath suffer'd change ; 
For surely now our household hearths are cold : 
Our sous inherit us : our looks are strange : 
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy. 
Or else the island princes over-bold 
Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings 
Before them of the ten-years' war in Troy, 
And our great deeds, as half- forgotten things. 
Is there confusion in the little isle? 
Let what is broken so remain. 
The Gods are hard to reconcile: 
'Tis hard to settle order once again. 
There is confusion worse than death, 
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain. 
Long labor unto aged breath, 
Sore task to hearts worn out with many wars. 
And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars. 

7. 
But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly, 
How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly) 
With half-dropt eyelids still, 
Beneath a heaven dark and holy. 
To watch the long bright river drawing slowly 
His waters from the purple hill — 
To hear the dewy echoes calling 
Prom cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine — 
To watch the emerald-color'd water falling 
Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine I 
Only to bear and see the far-off sparkling brine, 
Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath the 
pine. 



The Lotos blooms below the barren peak : 
The Lotos blows by every winding creek : 
All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone : 
Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone 
Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos- 
dust is blown. 
We have had enough of action, and of motion we, 
Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the 

surge was seething free,- 
Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam- 
fountains in the sea. 
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal 

mind, ^. 

In the hollow Lotos-uPfl to live and lie reclined 
On the hills like Gods together, careless of man- 
kind. 



For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts aie 

hurl'd 
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are 

lightly curl'd 
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleam- 

. ing world : 
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted 

lands, 
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring 

deeps and fiery sands. 
Clanging flghts, and flaming towns, and sinking 

ships, and praying hands. 
But they smile, they find a music centred in a dole- 
ful song 
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of 

wrong, 
Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are 

strong ; 
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave 

the soil. 
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring 

toil. 
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine, and oil ; 
Till they perish and they suffer— some, 'tis whis- 
pered — down in hell 
Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysiau valleys 

dwell. 
Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel. 
Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the 

shore 
Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave 

and oar ; 
O rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander 

more. 



A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 

I BEAD, before my eyelids dropt their shade, 
" The Legend of Good Women," long ago 

Sung by the morning star of song, who made 
His music heard below; 

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath 
Preluded those melodious bursts that fill 

The spacious times of great Elizabeth 
With sounds that echo still. 

And, for a while, the knowledge of his art 
Held me above the subject, as strong gales 

Hold swollen clouds from raining, tho' my heart, 
Brimful of those wild tales, 

Charged both mine eyes with tears. In every laud 

I saw, wherever light illumineth. 
Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand 

The downward slope to death. 

Those far-renowned brides of ancient song 

Peopled the hollow dark, like burning stars, 

And I heard sounds of insult, shame, and wrong. 
And trumpets blown for wars; 

And clattering flints batter'd with clanging hoofs : 
And I saw crowds in column'd sanctuaries ; 

And forms that pass'd at windows and on roofs 
Of marble palaces ; 

Corpses across the threshold; heroes tall 

Dislodging pinnacle and parapet 
Upon the tortoise creeping to the wall ; 

Lances in ambush set; 

And high shrine -doors burst thro' with heated 
blasts 

That run before the fluttering tongues of fire ; 
White surf wind-scatter' d over sails and maats, 

And ever climbing higher; 



A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN. 



37 



Squadrons and squares of men in brazen plates, 
Scaffolds, still sheets of water, divers woes, 

Ranges of glimmering vaults with iron grates, 
And hush'd seraglios. 

So shape chased shape as swift as, when to land 
Bluster the winds and tides the self-same way. 

Crisp foam-flakes scud along the level sand, 
Torn from the fringe of spray. 

I started once, or seem'd to start in pain. 

Resolved on noble things, and strove to speak, 

As when a great thought strikes along the brain. 
And flushes all the cheek. 

And once my arm was lifted to hew down 
A cavalier from oflf his saddle-bow, 

That bore a lady from a leaguer'd town ; 
And then, I know not how, 

All those sharp fancies by dovi^n-lapsing thought 
Stream' d onward, lost their edges, and did creep 

Roll'd on each other, rounded, smooth'd, and brought 
Into the gulfs of sleep. 

At last methought that I had wandered far 

In an old wood : fresh-wash'd in coolest dew, 

The maiden splendors of the morning star 
Shook in the steadfast blue. 

Enormous elm-tree boles did stoop and lean 
Upon the dusky brushwood underneath 

Their broad curved branches, fledged with clearest 
green. 
New from its silken sheath. 

The dim red morn had died, her journey done. 
And with dead lips smiled at the twilight plain, 

Half-fall'n across the threshold of the sun. 
Never to rise again. 

There was no motion in the dumb dead air, 
Not any song of bird or sound of rill ; 

Gross darkness of the inner sepulchre 
Is not so deadly still 

As that wide forest. Growths of jasmine turn'd 
Their humid arms festooning tree to tree, 

And at the root thro' lush green grasses buru'd 
The red anemone. 

I knew the flowers, I knew the leaves, I knew 
The tearful glimmer of the languid dawn 

On those long, rank, dark wood-walks drencli'd in 
dew. 
Leading from lawn to lawn. 

The smell of violets, hidden in the green, 

Pour'd back into my empty soul and frame 

The times when I remember to have been 
Joyful and free from blame. 

And from within me a clear uuder-tone 

Thrill'd thro' mine ears in that unblissllil clime, 

" Pass freely thro' : the wood is all thine own. 
Until the end of time." 

At length I saw a lady within call, 

Stiller than chisell'd marble, standing there ; 

A daughter of the gods, divinely tall. 
And most divinely fair. 

Her loveliness with shame and with surprise 

Froze my swift speech ; she turning on my face 

The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes. 
Spoke slowly in her place. 

"I had great beauty; ask thou not my name: 
No one can be more wise than destiny. 



Many drew swords and died. Where'er I came 
I brought calamity." 

"No marvel, sovereign lady: iu fair field 
Myself for such a face had boldly died." 

I answer'd free; and turning I appeal'd 
To one that stood beside. 

But she, with sick and scornful looks averse. 

To her full height her stately stature draws ; 
"My youth," she said, "was blasted with a curse: 
This woman was the cause. 

"I was cut oft' from hope in that sad place, 

Which yet to name my spirit loathes and fears : 

My father held his hand upon his face : 
I, blinded with my tears, 

"Still strove to speak: my voice was thick with 
sighs 

As in a dream. Dimly I could descry 
The stern black-bearded kings with wolfish eyes. 

Waiting to see me die. 

"The high masts flicker'd as they lay afloat; 

The crowds, the temples, waver'd, and the shore ; 
The bright death quiver'd at the victim's throat; 

Touch'd; and I knew no more." 

Whereto the other with a downward brow : 

"I would the white cold heavy-plunging foam, 

Whirl'd by the wind, had roll'd me deep below, 
Then when I left my home." 

Her slow full words sank thro' the silence drear, 
As thunder-drops fall on a sleeping sea ; 

Sudden I heard a voice that cried, " Come here, 
That I may look on thee." 

I turning saw, throned on a flowery rise. 
One sitting on a crimson scarf unroU'd ; 

A queen, with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes, 
Brow-bouud with burning gold. 

She, flashing forth a haughty smile, began : 

"I govern'd men by change, and so I sway'd 

All moods. 'Tis long since I have seen a man. 
Once, like the moon, I made 

"The ever-shifting currents of the blood 
According to my humor ebb and flow. 

I have no men to govern in this wood : 
That makes my only woe. 

"Nay— yet it chafes me that I could not bend 
One will ; nor tame and tutor with mine eye 

That dull cold-blooded Cresar. Prythee, friend, 
Where is Mark Antony? 

"The man, my lover, with whom I rode sublime 
On Fortune's neck: we sat as God by God: 

The Nilus would have risen before his time 
And flooded at our nod. 

"We drank the Libyan Sun to sleep, and lit 
Lamps which outburn'd Canopus. O my life 

In Egypt ! O the dalliance and the wit, 
The flattery and the strife, 

"And the wild kiss, when fresh from war's alarms, 

My Hercules, my Roman Antony, 
My mail(!d Bacchus leapt into my arms. 

Contented there to die I 

"And there he died: and when I heai'd my name 
Sigh'd forth with life I would not brook my fear 

Of the other : with a worm I balk'd his fame. 
What else was left ? look here !" 



38 



A DKEAM or FAIR WOMEN. 



(With that she tore her robe apart, aud half 
The polish'd argeut of her breast to sight 

Laid bare. Thereto she poiuted with a laugh, 
Showing the aspic's bite.) 

"I died a Queen. The Roman soldier found 
Me lying dead, my crown about my brows, 

A name forever ! — lying robed and crowu'd. 
Worthy a Roman spouse." 

Her warbling voice, a lyre of widest range 

Struck by all passion, did fall down and glance 

From tone to tone, and glided thro' all change 
Of liveliest utterance. 

When she made pause I knew not for delight; 

Because with sudden motion from the ground 
She raised her piercing orbs, and lill'd with light 

The interval of sound. 

Still with their fires Love tipt his keenest darts ; 

As once they drew into two burning rings 
All beams of Love, melting the mighty hearts 

Of captains and of kings. 

Slowly my sense undazzled. Then I heard 

A noise of some one coming thro' the lawn, 

Aud singing clearer than the crested bird. 
That claps his wings at dawn. 

"The torrent brooks of hallow'd Israel 

From craggy hollows pouring, late and soon, 

Sound all night long, in falling thro' the dell. 
Far-heard beneath the moon. 

"The balmy moon of blessed Israel 

Floods all the deep-blue gloom with beams di- 
vine: 
All uisht the splinter' d crags that wall the dell 

With spires of silver shine." 

As one that museth where broad sunshine laves 
The lawn of some cathedral, thro' the door 

ilearing the holy organ rolling waves 
Of sound on roof and floor 

Within, and anthem sung, is charm'd and tied 

To where he stands,— so stood I, when that flow 

Of music left the lips of her that died 
To save her father's vow ; 

The daughter of the warrior Gileadite, 

A maiden pure ; as when she went along 

Prom Mizpeh's tower'd gate with welcome light. 
With timbrel and with song. 

My words leapt forth : " Heaven heads the count of 
crimes 

With that wild oath." She render'd answer high : 
"Not so, nor once alone; a thousand times 

I would be born and die. 

"Single I grew, like some green plant, whose root 
Creeps to the garden water-pipes beneath. 

Feeding the flower; but ere my flower to fruit 
Changed, I was ripe for death. 

"My God, my land, my father,— the?e did move 
IMe from my bliss of life, that Nature gave, 

Lpwer'd softly with a threefold cord of love 
Down to a silent grave. 

"And I went mourning, 'No fair Hebrew boy 
Shall smile away my maiden blame among 

The Hebrew mothers' — emptied of all joy 
Leaving the dance and song, 

'■Leaving the olive-gardens far below. 

Leaving the promise of uiy bridal bower. 



The valleys of grape-loaded vines that glow 
Beneath the battled tower. 

" The light white cloud swam over us. Anon 
We heard the lion roaring from his den ; 

We saw the large white stars rise one by one, 
Or, from the darken' d glen, 

"Saw God divide the night with flying flame, 
And thunder on the everlasting hills. 

I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became 
A solemn scorn of ills. 

"When the next moon was roll'd into the sky, 
Strength came to me that equall'd my desire. 

How beautiful a thing it was to die 
For God and for my sire ! 

"It comforts me in this one thought to dwell, 

That I subdued me to my father's will; 
Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell, 

Sweetens the spirit still. 

"Moreover it is written that my race 

Hew'd Amnion, hip and thigh, from Aroer 

On Arnon itnto Minneth." Here her face 
Glow'd, as I look'd at her. 

She lock'd her lips ; she left me where I stood : 
" Glory to God," she sang, and past afar, 

Thridding the sombre boskage of the wood, 
Toward the morning-star. 

Losing her carol I stood pensively, 

As one that from a casement leans his head, • 
When midnight bells cease ringing suddenly. 

And the old year is dead. 

"Alas! alas!" a low voice, full of care, 

Murmnr'd beside me: "Turn and look on me: 

I am that Rosamond, whom men call fair, 
If what I was I be. 

" Would I had been some maiden coarse and poor I 
O me, that I should ever see the light ! 

Those dragon eyes of anger'd Eleanor 
Do hunt me, day and night." 

She ceased in tears, fallen from hope aud trust : 
To whom the Egyptian : " O, you tamely died ! 

You should have clung to Fulvia's waist, and thrust 
The dagger thro' her side." 

With that sharp sound the white dawn's creeping 
beams, 

Stol'n to my brain, dissolved the mystery 
Of folded sleep. The captain of my dreams 

Ruled in the eastern sky. 

Morn broaden'd on the borders of the dark, 

Ere I saw her, who clasp'd in her last trance 

Her murder'd father's head, or Joan of Arc, 
A light of ancient France ; 

Or her, who knew that Love can vanquish Death, 
Who kneeling, with one arm about her king, 

Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath. 
Sweet as new buds in Spring. 

No memory labors longer from the deep 

Gold-mines of thought to lift the hidden ore 

That glimpses, moving up, than I from sleep 
To gather and tell o'er 

Each little sound and sight. With what dull pain 
Compass'd, how eagerly I sought to strike 

Into that wondrous track of dreams again ! 
But no two dreams are like. 



MARGARET.— THE BLACKBIRD.— THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR. 



;i.> 



As wheu a soal laments, which hath been blest, 
Desiring what is miugled with past years, 

In yearnings that can never be exprest 
By signs or groans or tears ; 

Because all words, tho' cull'd with choicest art, 
Failing to give the bitter of the sweet. 

Wither beneath the palate, and the hi'art 
Faints, faded by its heat. 



MARGARET. 

1. 

O SWEET pale Margaret, 

O rare pale Margaret, 
What lit your eyes with tearful power, 
Like moonlight on a falling shower? 
Who lent you, love, your mortal dower 

Of pensive thought aud aspect pale. 

Your melancholy sweet aud frail 
As perfume of the cuckoo-flower ? 
From the westward-winding flood. 
From the evening-lighted wood. 

From all things outward you have won 
A tearful grace, as tho' you stood 

Between the rainbow and the sun. 
The very smile before you speak. 
That dimples your transparent cheek, 
Encircles all the heart, and I'eedeth 
The senses with a still delight 

Of dainty sorrow without sound. 

Like the tender amber round. 
Which the moon about her spreadeth. 
Moving thro' a fleecy night. 



You love, remaining peacefully. 

To hear the muimur of the strife, 
But enter not the toil of life. 

Your spirit is the calmed irea, 

Laid by the tumult of the fight. 

You are the evening star, alway 

Remaining betwixt dark and bright: 

LuU'd echoes of laborious day 

Come to you, gleams of mellow light 
Float by you on the verge of night. 

3. 

What can it matter, Margaret, 

What songs below the waning stars 

The lion-heart, Plantagenet, 

Sang looking thro' his prison bars? 
Exquisite Margaret, who can tell 

The last wild thought of Chatelet, 
Just ere the fallen axe did part 
The burning brain from the true heart, 
Even in her sight he loved so well? 



A fairy shield your Genius made 

Aud gave you on your natal day. 
Your sorrow, only sorrow's shade. 

Keeps real sorrow far away. 
You move not in such solitudes, 

You are not less divine, 
But more human in your moods, 

Than your twin-sister, Adeline. 
Yi)Ur hair is darker, and your eyes 

Touch'd with a somewhat darker hue, 

And less aerially blue 

But ever trembling thro' the dew 
Of daiuty-woful sympathies. 



5. 



O sweet pale Margaret, 
O rare pale Margaret, 



Come down, come down, and hear me speak : 
Tie up the ringlets on your cheek: 

The sun is just about to set. 
The arching limes are tall and shady, 
And faint, rainy lights are seen. 
Moving in the leafy beech. 
Rise from the feast of sorrow, lad}-, 

Where all day long you sit between 
Joy and woe, and whisper each. 
Or only look across the lawn, 

Look out below your bower-eaves, 

Look down, and let your blue eyes dawn 

Upon me thro' the jasmine-leaves. 



THE BLACKBIRD. 

O Blackbieu ! sing me something well : 
While all the neighbors shoot the round, 
I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground, 

Wliere thou may'st warble, eat, and dwell. 

The espaliers aud the standards all 
Are thine : the range of lawn aud park : 
The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark. 

All thine, against the garden wall. 

Yet, tho' I spared thee all the Spring, 
Thy sole delight is, sitting still. 
With that gold dagger of thy bill 

To fret the Summer jenneting. 

A golden bill ! the silver tongue, 

Cold February loved, is dry : 

Plenty corrupts the melody 
That made thee famous once, when young: 

And in the sultry garden-squares, 
Now thy flute-notes are changed to coarse, 
I hear thee not at all, or hoarse 

As when a hawker hawks his wares. 

Take warning! he that will not sing 
While yon sun prospers in the blue, 
Shall sing for want, ere leaves are new, 

Caught in the frozen palms of Spring. 



THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR. 

Full knee-deep lies the winter snow. 
And the winter winds are wearily sighing: 
Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow. 
And tread softly and speak low. 
For the old year lies a-dying. 

Old year, you must not die : 

You came to us so readily, 

You lived with us so steadily, 

Old year, you shall not die. 

He I'eth still: he doth not move: 

Me will not see the dawn of day. 

He hath no other life above. 

He gave me a friend, aud a true, true-love, 

Aud the New-year will take 'em 'away. 

Old year, you must not go; 

So long as you have been with us, 

.'uch joy as you have seen with us, 

Old year, you shall not go. 

He froth'd his bumpers to the brim; 
A jollier year we shall not see. 
But tho' his eyes are waxing dim. 
And tho' his foes si)eak ill of him. 
He was a friend to me. 



40 



TO J. S. 




** Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow, 
And tread softly and speak low, 
For the old year lies a-dying." 



Old year, you shall not die ; 

We did 60 laugh and cry with you, 

I've half a mind to die with you, 

Old year, if you must die. 

« 

He was full of joke and jest, 
But all his merry quips are o'er. 
To see him die across the waste 
Hie son and heir doth ride post-haste, 
But he'll be dead before. 

Every one for his own. 

The night is starry and cold, my friend, 

And the New-year blithe and bold, my friend. 

Comes up to take his own. 

How hard he breathes ! over the snow 
I heard just now the crowing cock. 
The shadows flicker to and fro : 
The cricket chirps : the light burns low : 
'Tis nearly twelve o'clock. 

Shake hands, before you die. 

Old year, we'll dearly rue for you: 

What is it we can do for you? 

Speak out before you die. 

His face is growing sharp and thin. 
Alack ! our friend is gone, 
Close up his eyes: tie up his chin: 
Step from the corpse, and let him in 
That standeth there alone, 

And waiteth at the door. 

There's a new foot on the floor, my friend, 

And a new face at the door, my friend, 

A new face at the door. 



TO J. S. 

The wind, that beats the mountain, blows 
More softly round the open wold, 

And gently comes the world to those 
That are cast in gentle mould. 

And me this knowledge bolder made, 

Or else I had not dare to flow 
In these words toward you, and invade 

Even with a verse your holy woe. 

'Tis strange that those we lean on most, 

Those in whose laps our limbs are i)iu>e;l, 

Fall into shadow, soonest lost : 

Those we love first are taken first. 

God gives us love. Something to love 
He lends us ; but, when love is grown 

To ripeness, that on which it throve 
Falls off", and love is left alone. 

This is the curse of time. Alas ! 

In grief I am not all uulearn'd ; 
Once thro' mine own doors Death did pass; 

One weat, who never hath returu'd. 

He will not smile— nor speak to me 

Once more. Two years his chair is seen 

Empty before us. That was he 

Without whose life I had not been. 

Your loss is rarer ; for this star 
Rose M'ith you thro' a little arc 



YOU ASK ME WHY.— LOVE THOU THY LAND. 



41 



Of heaven, nor having wauder'd far 
Shot on the sudden into dark. 

I knew your brother : his mute dust 

I honor and his living worth : 
A man more pure and bold and just 

Was never born into the earth. 

I have not look'd upon you nigh, 

Since that dear soul hath fall'n asleep. 

Great Nature is more wise than I : 
I will not tell you not to weep. 

And tho' mine own eyes fill with dew, 
Drawn from the spirit thro' the brain, 

I will not even preach to you, 

"Weep, weeping dulls the inward pain." 

Let Grief be her own mistress still. 

She loveth her own anguish deep 
More than much pleasure. Let her will 

Be done— to weep or not to weep. 

I will not say " God's ordinance 

Of death is blown in every wind ;" 

For that is not a common chance 
That takes away a noble mind. 

His memory long will live alone 

In all our hearts, as mournful light 

That broods above the fallen sun. 

And dwells in heaven half the night. 

Vain solace ! Memory standing near 

Cast down her eyes, and in her throat 

Her voice seem'd distant, and a tear 
Dropt on the letters as I wrote. 

I wrote I know not what. In truth, 
How should 1 soothe you anjiray, 

Who miss the brother of your youth ? 
Yet something I did wish to say: 

For he too was a friend to me : 

Both are my friends, and my true breast 
Bleedeth for both: yet it may be 

That only silence suiteth best. 

Words weaker than your grief would make 
Grief more. 'Twere better 1 should cease ; 

Although myself could almost take 

The place of him that sleeps in peace. 

Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace ; 

Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul, 
While the stars burn, the moons increase. 

And the great ages onward roll. 

Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet. 

Nothing comes to thee new or strange, 
Sleep full of rest from head to feet ; 

Lie still, dry dust, secure of change. 



Yotr ask me, why, tho' ill at ease, 
Within this region I subsist. 
Whose spirits falter in the mist, 

And languish for the purple seas? 

It is the land that freemen till. 

That sober-suited Freedom chose. 

The land, where girt with friends or foes 

A man may speak the thing he will ; 

A land of settled government, 

A laud of just and old renown, 
Where freedom broadens slowly down 

From precedent to precedent: 



Where faction seldom gathers head. 
But by degrees to fulness wrought. 
The strength of some diffusive thought 

Hath time and space to work and spread. 

Should banded unions persecute 
Opinion, and induce a time 
When single thought is civil crime. 

And individual freedom mute ; 

Tho' Power should make from land to land 
The name of Britain trebly great — 
Tho' every channel of the State 

Should almost choke with golden sand — 

Yet waft me from the harbor-mouth. 
Wild wind 1 I seek a warmer sky, 
And I will see before I ISie 

The palms and temples of the South. 



Of old sat»Freedom on the heights. 
The thunders breaking at her feet: 

Above her shook the starry lights : 
She heard the torrents meet. 

There in her place she did rejoice, 
Sell-gather'd in her prophet-mind. 

But fragments of her mighty voice 
Come rolling on the wind. 

Then stept she down thro' town and field 
To mingle with the human race, 

And part by part to men reveal'd 
The fulness of her face — 

Grave mother of majestic works, 
From her isle-altar gazing down, 

Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks. 
And, King-like, wears the crown : 

Her open eyes desire the truth. 

The wisdom of a thousand years 
Is in them. May perpetual youth 

Keep dry their light from tears ; 

That her fair form may stand and shine. 

Make bright our days and light our dreams. 

Turning to scorn with lips divine 
The falsehood of extremes ! 



Love thou thy land, with love far-brought 
Feam out the storied Past, and used 
Wroiin the Present, but transfused 

Thro' future time by power of thought 

True love turn'd round on fixed poles, 
Love, that endures not sordid ends, 
For English natures, freemen, friends. 

Thy brothers and immortal souls. 

But pamper not a hasty time. 
Nor feed with crude imaginings 
The herd, wild hearts and feeble wings. 

That every sophister can lime. 

Deliver not the tasks of might 
To weakness, neither hide the ray 
From those, not blind, who wait for day, 

Tho' sitting girt with doubtful light. 



42 



THE GOOSE. 



Make knowledge circle with the winds: 
But let her herald, Revereuce, fly 
Before her to whatever sky 

Bear seed of men and growth of minds. 

Watch what main-currents draw the years 
Cut Prejudice against the grain : 
But gentle words are always gain : 

Regard the weakness of thy peers : 

Nor toil for title, place, or touch 
Of pension, neither count on pi'aise : 
It grows to guerdon after-days : 

Nor deal in watch-words over-much; 

Not clinging to some ancient saw; 

Not master'd by some modern term ; 

Not swift or ^w to change, but firm : 
And in its season bring the law; 

That from Discussion's lip may fall 
With Life, that, working strongly, binds- 
Set in all lights by many minds, 

To close the interests of all. 

For Nature, also, cold and warm,* 
And moist and dry, devising long. 
Thro' many agents making strong. 

Matures the individual form. 

Meet is it changes should control 
Our being, lest we rust in ease. 
We all are changed by still degrees, 

All but the basis of the soul. 

So let the change which comes be free 
To ingroove itself with that, which flies. 
And work, a joint of state, that plies 

Its office, moved with sympathy. 

A saying, hard to shape in act; 
For all the past of Time reveals 
A bridal dawn of thunder-peals. 

Wherever Thought hath wedded Fact. 

Ev'n now we hear with inward strife 
A motion toiling in the gloom— 
The Spirit of the years to come 

Yearning to mix himself with Life. 

A slow-develop'd strength awaits 
Completion in a painful school ; "- 
Phantoms of other forms of rule, 

New Majesties of mighty States — 

The warders of the growing hour, 
But vague in vapor, hard to mark ; 
Atd round them sea and air are dark 

With great contrivances of Power. 

Of many changes, aptly join'd. 
Is bodied forth the secoud whole. ^ 
Regard gradation, lest the soul 

Of Discord race the rising wind; 

A wind to puff your idol-fires. 
And heap their ashes on the head ; 
To shame the boast so often made, 

That we are wiser than our sires. 

O yet, if Nature's evil star 
Drive men in manhood, as in youth, 
To follow flying steps of Truth 

Across the brazen bridge of war — 

If New and Old, disastrous feud, 
Must ever shock, like armed foes. 
And this be true, till Time shall close. 

That Principles are rain'd in blood; 



Not yet the wise of heart would cease 
To hold his hope thro' shame and guilt, 
But with his hand against the hilt, 

Would pace the troubled land, like Peace; 

Not less, tho' dogs of Faction bay, 
Would serve his kind in deed and word. 
Certain, if knowledge bring the sword. 

That knowledge takes the sword aAvay— 

Would love the gleams of good that broke 
Froiti either side, nor veil his eyes : 
And if some dreadful need should ri^e 

Would strike, and firmly, and one stroke: 

To-morrow yet would reap to-day, 
As we bear blossom of the dead ; 
Earn ^ell the thrifty months, nor wed 

Raw Haste, half-sister to Delay. 



THE GOOSE. 

I KNEW an old wife lean aud poor, 

Her rags scarce held together ; 
There strode a stranger to the door. 

And it was windy weather. 

He held a goose upon his arm, 

He utter'd rhyme and reason, 
"Here, take the goose, and keep you warm, 

It is a stormy season." 

She caught the white goose by the leg. 

A goose — 'twas no great matter. 
The goose let fall a golden egg 

With c|M;kle and with clatter. 

She dropt the goose, and caught the pelf. 

And ran to tell her neighbors ; 
Aud bless'd herself, and cursed herself. 

And rested from her labors. 

And feeding high, and living soft. 

Grew plump and able-bodied ; 
Until the grave churchwarden doff'd, 

The parson smirk'd aud nodded. 

So sitting, served by man and maid. 
She felt her heart grow prouder : 

But ah ! the more the white goose laid 
It clack'd and cackled louder. 

It clutter'd here, it chuckled there; 

It stirr'd the old wife's mettle: 
She shifted in her elbow-chair, 

And hurl'd the pan and kettle. 

" A quinsy choke thy cursed note !" 
Then wax'd her anger stronger. 

"Go, take the goose, aud wring her throat, 
I will not bear it longer." 

Then yelp'd the cur, and yawl'd the cat ; 

Ran Gafler, stumbled Gammer, 
The goose flew this way aud flew that, 

And fill'd the house with clamor. 

As head and heels upon the floor 

They floundered all together. 
There .strode a stranger to the door. 

And it was windy weather : 

He took the goose upon his arm, 

He utter'd words of scorning; 
"So keep you cold, or keep you warm. 

It is a stormy morning." 



THE EPIC. 



43 




'^ As head and heels upon the floor 
They floundered all together, 
There strode a stranger to the door." 



The wild wind rang from parli and plain, 
And roaud the attics rumbled, 

Till all the tables danced again. 
And half the chimneys tumbled. 

The glass blew in, the Are blew out, 
The blast was hard and harder. 



Her cap blew off, her gown blew up, 
Aud a whirlwind clear'd the larder; 

And while on all sides breaking loose 
Her household fled the danger. 

Quoth she, "The Devil take the goose, 
And God forget the stranger'." 



ENGLISH IDYLS AND OTHER POEMS. 



(published 1842.) 



THE EPIC. 



At Francis Allen's on the Christmas-eve, — 
The game of forfeits done— the girls all kiss'd 
Beneath the sacred bush and past away — 
The parson Holmes, the poet Everard Hall, 
The host, and I sat round the wassail-bowl, 
Then half-way ebb'd : and there we held a talk, 
How all the old honor had from Christmas gone. 
Or gone, or dwindled down to some odd games 
In some odd nooks like this ; till I, tired out 
With cutting eights that day upon the pond. 
Where, three times slipping from the outer edge, 
I bump'd the ice into three several stars, 
Fell in a doze : and half-awake I heard 
The parson taking wide and wider sweeps, 
Now harping on the church-commissioners, 
•Now hawking at Geology and schism; 
Until I woke, and fotmd him settled down 
Upon the general decay of faith 
Kight thro' the world, "at home was little left, 
And none abroad: there was no anchor, none, 
To hold by." Francis, laughing, clapt his hand 
On Everard's shoulder, with " I hold by him." 



"And I," quoth Everard, "by the wassail-bowl." 

"Why yes," I said, " we knew your gift that way 

At college : but another which you had— 

I mean of verse (for so we held it then,) 

What came of that?" "You know," said Frank, 

"he burnt 
His epic, his King Arthur, some twelve books " — 
And then to me demanding why? " O, sir. 
He thought; that nothing new was said, or else 
Something so said 'twas nothing— that a truth 
Looks freshest in the fashion of the day: 
God knows: he has a mint of reasons: ask. 
It pleased me well enough." " Nay, naj'," said Hall, 
"Why take the style of those heroic times? 
For nature brings not back the Mastodon, 
Nor we those times; and why should any man 
Kemodel models ? these twelve books of mine 
Were faint Homeric echoes, nothing-worth, 
Mere chaff and draff, much better burnt." "But I," 
Said Francis, " pick'd the eleventh from this hearth, 
And have it: keep a thing, its use will come. 
I hoard it as a sugar-plum for Holmes." 
He laugh'd, and I, though sleepy, like a horse 
That hears the corn-bin open, prick'd my ears ; 



u 



MOKTE D'ARTHUR. 



For I remember'd Everard's college fame 
When we were Freshmen : then at my request 
He brought it ; and the poet, little urged, 
But with some prelude of disparagement, 
Read, mouthing out his hollow oes and aes, 
Deep-chested music, and to this result. 



MORTE D'ARTHUR. 

So all day long the noise of battle roll'd 

Among the mountains by the winter sea; 

Until King Arthur's table, man by man, 

Had fall'n in Lyonness about their Lord, 

King Arthur : then, because his wound was deep. 

The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him. 

Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights, 

And bore him to a chapel nigh the tield, 

A broken 'chancel with a broken cross. 

That stood on a dark strait of barren land. 

On one side lay the Ocean, and on one 

Lay a great water, and the moon was full. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: 
" The sequel of to-day unsolders all 
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights 
Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep 
They sleep— the men I loved. I think that we 
Shall never more, at any future time, 



Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, 
Walking about the gardens and the halls 
Of Camelot, as in the days that were. 
I perish by this people which I made, — 
Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again 
To rule once more — but let what will be, be, 
I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm 
That without help I cannot last till morn. 
Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur, 
Which was my pride : for thou rememberest how 
In those old days, one summer noon, an arm 
Rose up from out the bosom of the lake. 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 
Holding the sword — and how I rowed across 
And took it, and have worn it, like a king: 
And, wheresoever I am sung or told 
In aftertime, this also shall be known : 
But now delay not: take Excalibur, 
And fling him far into the middle mere: 
Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word.' 

To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere: 
"It is not meet. Sir King, to leave thee thus. 
Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm. 
A little thing may harm a wounded man. 
Yet I thy best will all perform at full. 
Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word." 

So saying, from the ruined shrine he stept 
And in the moon athwart the place of tombs, 
Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men. 



^:^. 




hose up from out the bosom of the lake, 
Clothed in white samite." 



MORTE D'ARTHUR. 



45 



Old kuights, and over them the sea-wind sang 
Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down 
By zig-zag paths, and juts of pointed rock, 
Came on the shining levels of the lake. 

There drew he forth the brand Excalibnr, 
And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, 
Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth 
And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt: 
For all the haft twinkled with diamond studs, 
Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work 
Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long 
That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood, 
This way ^nd that dividing the swift mind, 
In act to throw : but at the last it seem'd 
Better to leave Excalibnr conceal'd 
There in the many-knotted waterflags. 
That whistled stiff and dry about the marge. 
So strode he back slow to the wounded king. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 
" Hast thou performed my mission which I gave ? 
What is it thou hast seen or what hast heard?" 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
" I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, 
And the wild water lapping on the crag." 

To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale : 
"Thou hast betray'd thy nature and thy name, 
Not rendering true answer, as beseem'd 
Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight : 
For surer sign had foUow'd, either hand, 
Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. 
This is a shameful thing for men to lie. 
Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again 
As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing 
I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word." 

Then went Sir Bedivere the second time 
Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere, 
Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd \n thought ; 
But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, 
How curiously and strangely chased, he smote 
His palms together, and he cried aloud. 

"And if indeed I cast the brand away, 
Surely a precious thing, one worthy note. 
Should thus be lost forever from the earth, 
Which might have pleased the eyes of many men. 
What good should follow this, if this were done ? 
What harm, undone? deep harm to disobey, 
Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. 
Were it well to obey then, if a king demand 
An act unprofitable, against himself? 
The King is sick, and knows not what he does. 
What record, or what relic of my lord 
Should be to aftertime, but empty breath 
And rumors of a doubt ? but were this kept, 
Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings, 
Some one might show it at a joust of arms. 
Saying, ' King Arthur's sword, Excalibnr, 
Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. 
Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps 
Upon the hidden bases of the hills." 
So might some old man speak in the aftertime 
To all the people, winning reverence. 
But now much honor and much fame were lost." 

So spake he, clouded with his own conceit. 
And hid Excalibur the second time, 
And so strode back slow to the wounded King. 

Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily : 
"What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?" 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: 
" I heard the water lapping on the crag. 
And the long ripple washing in the reeds." 

To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath : 
" Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, 
Uukuightly, traitor-hearted ! Woe is me ! 
Authority forgets a dying king, 
Laid widow'd of the power in his eye 
That bow'd the will. I see thee what thou art, 
For thou, the latest left of all my knights, 
In whom should meet the oflSces of all, 



Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt ; 

Either from lust of gold, or like a girl 

Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes 

Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice. 

And the third time may prosper, get thee hence : 

But, if thou spare to fling Excalibnr, 

I will arise and slay thee with my hands." 

Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran. 
And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged 
Among the bulrush-beds, and clutch'd the sword. 
And strongly wheel'd and threw it. The great brand 
Made lightnings in the splendor of the moon. 
And flashing round and round, and whirl'd in an 

arch, 
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn. 
Seen where the moving isles of winter shock 
By night, with noises of the northern sea. 
So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur: 
But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm 
Cloth'd in white samite, mystic, wouderfal. 
And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him 
Three times, and drew him under in the mere. 
And lightly went the other to the King. 

Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath : 

" Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. 
Speak out : what is it thou hast heard, or seen ?" 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
" Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems 
Should blind^ my purpose, for I never saw. 
Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die, 
Not tho' I live three lives of mortal men, 
So great a miracle as yonder hilt. 
Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him ; 
But when I look'd again, behold an arm, 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 
That caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him 
Three times, and drew him under in the mere." 

And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard : 
"My end draws nigh; 'tis time that I were gone. 
Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight. 
And bear me to the margin ; yet I fear 
My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die." 

So saying, from the pavement he half rose. 
Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm. 
And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes 
As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere 
Remorsefnlly regarded thro' his tears, 
And would have spoken, but he found not words, 
Then took vrith care, and kneeling on one knee. 
O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands. 
And rising bore him thro' the place ot tombs. 

But, as he walk'd, King Arthur panted hard. 
Like one that feel*a nightmare on his bed 
When all the house is mute. So sigh'd the King, 
Muttering and murmuring at his ear " Quick, quick ! 
I fear it is too late, and I shall die." 
But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge. 
Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk'd, 
Larger than human on the frozen hills. 
He heard the deep behind him, and a cry 
Before. His own thought drove him like a goad. 
Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves 
And barren chasms, and all to left and right 
The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he based 
His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang 
Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels— 
And on a sudden, lo ! the level lake, 
And the long glories of the winter moon. 

Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge. 
Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern. 
Beneath them ; and descending they were ware 
That all the decks were dense with stately forms 
Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream— by these 
Three Queens with crowns of gold — and from them 

rose 
A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars, 
And, as it were one voice, an agony 
Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills 



40 



MORTE D'ARTIIUR. 



All uighl in a waste land, where no one comes, 
Or hath come, since the making of the world. 

Then murmur'd Arthur, "Place me in the barge," 
And to the barge they came. There those three 

Queens 
Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept. 
But she that rose the tallest of them all 
And fairest, laid his head upon her lap, 
And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands, 
And call'd him by his name, complaining loud, 
And dropping bitter tears against his brow 
Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white 
And colorless, and like the wither'd moon 
Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east ; 



"Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go? 
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes ? 
For now I see the true old times are dead, 
When every morning brought a noble chance, 
And every chance brought out a noble knight. 
Such times have been not since the light hath led 
The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. 
But now the whole round table is dissolved 
Which was an image of the mighty world ; 
And I, the last, go forth compauiouless. 
And the days darken round me, and the yearp, 
Among new men, strange faces, other minds." 

And slowly answer'd Arthur from the barge; 
"The old order changeth, yielding place \o new, 




*• Laid his liead upon lier lap, 
And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands, 
And called him by his name." 



And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops 
<)l' onset ; and the light and lustrous curls — 
That made his forehead like a rising sun 
High from the dais-throne — were parch'd with dust; 
Or, clotted into points and hanging loose, 
Mix'd with the knightly gro^vth that fringed his lips. 
So like a shatter'd column lay the King ; 
Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest, 
From spur to plnme a star of tournament, 
Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged 
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. 
Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere, 



And God fulfils himself in many ways, 

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 

Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me ? 

I have lived my life, and that which I have done 

May He within himself make pure ! but thou, 

If thou shouldst never see my face again, 

Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer 

Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice 

Pise like a fountain for me night and day. 

For what are men better than sheep or goats 

That nourish a blind life within the brain, 

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 



THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER. 



47 



Both for themselves and those who call them friend? 
For so the whole round earth is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 
But now farewell. I am going a long way 
With these thou seust — if indeed I go — 
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) 
To the island-valley of Avilion ; 
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies 
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns 
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea, 
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound." 
So said he, and the barge with oar and sail 
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan — 
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, 
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood 
With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere 
Revolving many memories, till the hull 
Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn. 
And on the mere the wailing died away. 



Here ended Hall, and our last light, that long 
Had wink'd and threaten'd darkness, flajteand fell: 
At which the Parson, sent to sleep witaW)uud, 
And waked with silence, grunted " Good !" but we 
Sat rapt : it was the tone with which he read — 
Perhaps some modern touches here and there 
Redeem'd it from the charge of nothingness — 
Or else we loved the man, and prized his work; 
I know not: but we sitting, as I said. 
The cock crew loud ; as at that time of year 
The lusty bird takes every hour for dawn : 
Then Francis, muttering, like a man ill-used, 
" There now — that's nothing 1" drew a little back. 
And drove his heel into the smoulder'd log, 
That sent a blast of sparkles up the flue : 
And so to bed ; where yet in sleep I seem'd 
To sail with Arthur under looming shores. 
Point after point ; till on to dawn, when dreams 
Begin to feel the truth and stir of day. 
To me, methought, who waited with a crowd. 
There came a bark that, blowing forward, bore 
King Arthur, like a modern gentleman 
Of stateliest port; and all the people cried, 
" Arthur is come again : he cannot die." 
Then those that stood upon the hills behind 
Repeated— "Come again, and thrice as fair;" 
And, further inland, voices echoed — " Come 
With all good things, and war shall be no more." 
At this a hundred bells began to peal. 
That with the sound I woke, and heard indeed 
The clear church-bells ring in the Christmas morn. 



THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER; OR, 

THE PICTURES. 

This morning is the morning of the da}^ 
When I and Eustace from the city went 
To see the Gardener's Daughter; I and he. 
Brothers in Art ; a friendship so complete 
Portiou'd in halves between us, that we grew 
The fable of the city where we dwelt. 

My Eustace might have sat for Hercules ; 
So muscular he spread, so broad of breast. 
He, by some law that holds in love, and draws 
The greater to the lesser, long desired 
A certain miracle of symmetry, 
A miniature of loveliness, all grace 
Snmm'd up and closed in little ;— Juliet, she 
So light of foot, 80 light of spirit— oh, she 
To me myself, for some three careless moons. 
The summer pilot of an empty heart 
Unto the shores of nothing ! Know you not 
Such touches are but embassies of love. 
To tamper with the feelings, ere he found 



Empire for life? but Eustace painted her. 

And said to me, she sitting with us then, 

"When will you paint like this?" and I replied, 

(My vi-ords were -half in earnest, half in jest,) 

" 'Tis not your work, but Love's. Love, unperceived, 

A more ideal Artist he than all. 

Came, drew your pencil from you, made tho.-e eyc;; 

Darker than darkest pansies, and that hair 

More black than ashbuds in the front of March." 

And Juliet answer'd laughing, " Go and see 

The Gardener's daughter: trust me, after that. 

You scarce can fail to match his masterpiece." 

And up we rose, and on the spur we went. 

Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite 
Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love. 
News from tbt humming city comes to it 
In sound of funeral or of marriage bells ; 
And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear 
The windy clanging of the minster clock ; 
Although between it and the garden lies 
A league of grass, wash'd by a slow broad stream, 
That, stirr'd with languid pulses of the oar, 
Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on, 
Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge 
Crown'd with the minster towers. 

The fields between 
Are dewy-fresh, browsed by deep-udder'd kine, 
And all about the large lime feathers low. 
The lime a summer home of murmurous wings. 

In that still place she, hoarded in herself. 
Grew, seldom seen : not less among us lives 
Her fame from lip to lip. Who had not heard 
Of Rose, the Gardener's daughter? Where was he. 
So blunt in memory, so old at heart, 
At such a distance from his youth in grief, 
That, having seen, forgot? The common mouth 
So gross to express delight, iu praise of her 
Grew oratory. Such a lord is Love, 
And Beauty such a mistress oi the world. 

And if I said that Fancy, led by Love, 
Would play with, flying forms and images, 
Yet this is also true, that, long before 
I look'd upon her, when I heard her name 
My heart was like a prophet to my heart 
And told me I should love. A crowd of hopes, 
That sought to sow themselves like winged seed?. 
Born out of everything I heard and saw, 
Flutter'd about my senses and my soul ; 
And vague desires, like fitful blasts of balm 
To one that travels quickly, made the air 
Of Life delicious, and all kinds of thought, 
That verged upon them, sweeter thau the dream 
Dream'd by a happy man, when the dark East, 
Unseen, is brightening to his bridal morn. 

And sure this orbit of the memory folds 
Forever in itself the day we went 
To see her. All the laud in flowery squares 
Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind. 
Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud 
Drew downward; but all else of Heaven was pnrc 
Up to the Sun, and May from verge to verge. 
And May with me from head to heel. And now, 
As tho' 't were yesterday, as tho' it were 
The hour just flown, that morn with all its sound, 
(For those old Mays had thrice the life of these,) 
Rings in mine ears. The steer forgot to graze. 
And, where the hedge-row cuts the pathway, stood, 
Leaning his horns into the neighbor field, 
And lowing to his fellows. From the woods 
Came voices of the well-contented doves. 
The lark could scarce get out his notes for joy, 
But shook his song together as he near'd 
His happy home, the ground. To left and right, 
The cuckoo told his name to all the hills; 
The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm ; 
The redcap whistled; and the nightingale 
Sang loud, as tho' he were the bird of day. 
And Eustace turn'd, and smiling said to me. 



48 



THE GARDENER'S DAUGHTER. 



"Hear how the bushes echo! by my life, 

These birds have joyful thoughts. Think you they 

sing 
Like poets, from the vanity of song ? 
Or have they any sense of why they sing ? 
And would they praise the heavens for what they 

have?" 
And I made answer, "Were there nothing else 
For which to praise the heavens but only love, 
That only love were cause enough for praise." 

Lightly he laugh'd, as one that read my thought, 
And on we went; but ere an hour had pass'd, 
We reach'd a meadow slanting to the North ; 
Down which a well-worn pathway courted us 
To one green wicket in a privet hedge; 
This, yielding, gave into a grassy vfaf^ 
Thro' crowded lilac-ambush trimly pruned ; 
And one warm gust, full-fed with perfume, blew 
Beyond us, as we enter'd in the cool. 
The garden stretches southward. In the midst 
A cedar spread his dark-greeu layers of shade. 
The garden-glasses shone, and momently 
The twinkling laurel scatter'd silver lights, 

"Eustace,"! said, "this wonder keeps the house." 
He nodded, but a moment afterwards 
He cried, "Look ! look !" Before he ceased I turn'd. 
And, ere a star can wink, beheld her there. 

For up the porch there grew an Eastern rose. 
That, flowering high, the last night's gale had caught, 
And blown across the walk. One arm aloft — 
Gown'd in pure white, that fitted to the shape — 
Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood. 
A single stream of all her soft brown hair 
Pour'd on one side : the shadow of the flowers 
Stole all the golden gloss, and, wavering 
Lovingly lower, trembled on her waist — 
Ah, happy shade— and still weut wavering down. 
But, ere it touch'd a foot, that might have danced 
The greensward into greener circles, dipt, 
And mix'd with shadows of the common ground! 
But the full day dwelt on her brows, and sunn'd 
Her violet eyes, and all her Hebe-bloom, 
And doubled his own warmth against her lips. 
And on the bounteous wave of such a breast 
As never pencil drew. Half light, half shade, 
She stood, a sight to make an old man young. 

So rapt, we near'd the house ; but she, a Rose 
In roses, mingled with her fragrant toil. 
Nor heard us come, nor from her tendance turn'd 
Into the world without; till close at hand. 
And almost ere I knew mine own intent, 
This murmur broke the stillness of that air 
Which brooded round about her: 

" Ah, one rose, 
One rose, bvit one, by those fair fingers cull'd, 
Were worth a hundred kisses press'd on lips 
Less exquisite than thine." 

She look'd: but all 
Suffused with blushes— neither self-possess'd 
Nor startled, but betwixt this mood and that. 
Divided in a graceful quiet— paused. 
And dropt the branch she held, and turning, wound 
Her looser hair in braid, and stirr'd her lips 
For some sweet answer, tho' no answer came, 
Nor yet refused the rose, but granted it. 
And moved away, and left me, statue-like, 
lu act to render thanks. 

I, that whole day. 
Saw her no more, altho' I linger'd there 
Till every daisy slept, and Love's white star 
Beam'd thro' the thicken' d cedar in the dusk. 

So home we went, and all the livelong way 
With solemn gibe did Eustace banter me. 
" Now," said he, " will you climb the top of Art. 
Yon cannot fail but work in hues to dim 
The Titianic Flora. Will you match 
My Juliet? you, not you, — the Master, Love, 
A more ideal Artist he than all." 



So home I went, but could not sleep for joy, 
Reading her perfect features in the gloom. 
Kissing the rose she gave me o'er and o'er, 
And shaping faithful record of the glance 
That graced the giving — such a noise of life 
Swarm'd in the golden present, such a voice 
Call'd to me from the years to come, and such 
A length of bright horizon rimm'd the dark. 
And all that night I heard the watchmen peal 
The sliding season: all that night I heard 
The heavy clocks knolling the drowsy hours. 
The drowsy hours, dispensers of all good. 
O'er the mute city stole with folded wings, 
Distilling odors on me as they went 
To greet their fairer sisters of the East. 

Love at first sight, first-born, and heir to all, 
Made this night thus. Henceforward squall nor storm 
Could keep me from that Eden where she dwelt. 
Light pretexts drew me: sometimes a Dutch love 
For tulips ; then for roses, moss or musk. 
To grace my city-rooms: or fruits and cream 
Served in the weeping elm; and more and more 
A word CQ|id bring the color to my cheek ; 
A thoughUFould fill my eyes with happy dew; 
Love trebled life within me, and with each 
The year increased. 

The daughters of the year, 
One after one, thro' that still garden pass'd: 
Each garlanded with her peculiar flower 
Danced into light, and died into the shade ; , 
And each in passing touch'd with some new grace 
Or seem'd to touch her, so that day by day, 
Like one that never can be wholly known. 
Her beauty grew; till Autumn brought an hour 
For Eustace, when I heard his deep "I will," 
Breathed, like the covenant of a God, to hold 
From thence thro' all the worlds; but I rose up 
Full of his bliss, and following her dark eyes 
Felt earth as air beneath me, till I reach'd 
The wicket-gate, and found her standing there. 

There sat we down upon a garden mound, 
Two mutually enfolded ; Love, the third, 
Between us, in the circle of his arms 
Enwound us both ; and over many a range 
Of waning lime the gray cathedral towers, 
Across a hazy glimmer of the west, 
Reveal'd their shining windows : from them clash'd 
The bells; we listeu'd; with the time we play'd; 
We spoke of other things ; we coursed about 
The subject most at heart, more near and near. 
Like doves about a dovecote, wheeling round 
The central wish, until we settled there. 

Then, in that time and place, I spoke to her. 
Requiring, tho' I knew it was mine own, 
Yet for the pleasure that I took to hear. 
Requiring at her hand the greatest gift, 
A woman's heart, the heart of her I loved ; 
And in that time and place she answer'd me. 
And in the compass of three little words, 
More musical than ever came in one. 
The silver fragments of a broken voice. 
Made me most happy, faltering "I am thine." 

Shall I cease here ? Is this enough to say 
That my desire, like all strongest hopes, 
By its own energy fulfill'd itself. 
Merged in completion ? Would you learn at fu"l 
How passion rose thro' circumstantial grades 
Beyond all grades develop' d? and indeed 
I had not stayed so long to tell you all, 
But while I mused came Memory with sad eyes. 
Holding the folded annals of my youth ; 
And while I mused, Love with knit brows went by, 
And with a flying finger swept my lips. 
And spake, " Be wise : not easily forgiven 
Are those, who, setting wide the doors that bar 
The secret bridal chambers of the heart. 
Let in the day." Here, then, my words have end. 

Yet might I tell of meetings, of farewells— 



DORA. 



49 



Of that which came between, more sweet than each', 
In whispers, like the whispers of the leaves 
That tremble rouud a nightingale— in sighs 
Which perfect Joy, perplex'd for utterance, 
Stole from her sister Sorrow. Might I not tell 
Of difference, reconcilement, pledges given, 
And vows, where there was never need of vows, 
And kisses, where the heart on one wild leap 
Hung tranced from all pulsation, as above 
The heavens between their fairy fleeces pale 
Sow'd all their mystic gulfs with fleeting stars; 
Or while the balmy glooming, crescent-lit, 
Spread the light haze along the river-shores. 
And in the hollows ; or as once we met 
Unheedful, tho' beneath a whispering rain 
Night slid down one long stream of sighing wind. 
And in her bosom bore the baby, Sleep. 

But this whole hour your eyes have been intent 
On that veil'd picture — veil'd, for what it holds 
May not be dwelt on by the common day. 
This prelude has prepared thee. Raise thy soul ; 
Make thine heart ready with thine eyes ; the time 
Is come to raise the veil. 

Behold her there, 
As I beheld her ere she knew my heart. 
My first, last love ; the idol of my youth, 
The darling. of my manhood, and, alas ! 
Now the most blessed memory of mine age. 



DORA. 

With farmer Allan at the farm abode 
William and Dora. William was his son, 
And she his niece. He often look'd at them, 
And often thought " I'll make them man and wife." 
Now Dora felt her uncle's will in all. 
And yearn'd towards William ; but the youth, because 
He had been always with her In the house. 
Thought not of Dora. 

Then there came a day 
When Allan call'd his son, and said, "My sou: 
I married late, but I would wish to see 
My grandchild on my knees before I die: 
And I have set my heart upon a match. 
Now therefore look to Dora ; she is well 
To look to ; thrifty too beyond her age. 
She is my brother's daughter : he and I 
Had once hard words, and parted, and he died 
In foreign lands; but for his sake I bred 
His daughter Dora ; take her for your wife ; 
For I have wish'd this marriage, night and day, 
For many years." But Williain answer'd short : 
" I cannot marry Dora ; by my life, 
I will not marry Dora." Then the old man 
Was wroth, and doubled up his hands, and said : 
" You will not, boy ! you dare to answer thus ! 
But in my time a father's word was law, 
And so it shall be now for me. Look to it: 
Consider, William : take a month to think, 
And let me have an answer to my wish ; 
Or, by the Lord that made me, you shall pack. 
And never more darken my doors again." 
But William answer'd madly ; bit his lips, 
And broke away. The more he look'd at her 
The less he liked her ; and his ways were harsTi ; 
But Dora bore them meekly. Then before 
The month was out he left his father's house. 
And hired himself to work within the fields ; 
And half in love, h^f spite, he woo'd and wed 
A laborer's daughter, Mary Morrison. 

Then when the bells were ringing, Allan call'd 
His niece and said: "My girl, I love you well: 
But if you speak with him that was my son, 
Or change a word with her he calls his wife, 
My home is none of yours. My will is law." 
4 



And Dora promised, being meek. She thought, 
"It cannot be: my uncle's mind will change!" 

And days went on, and there was born a boy 
To William ; then distresses came on him ; 
And day by day he pass'd his father's gate, 
Heart-broken, and his father help'd him not, 
But Dora stored what little she could save. 
And sent it them by stealth, nor did they know 
Who sent it ; till at last a fever seized 
On William, and in harvest time he died. 

Then Dora went to Mary. Mary sat 
And look'd with tears upon her boy, and thought 
Hard things of Dora. Dora came and said : 

" I have obey'd my uncle until now, 
And I have sinn'd, for it was all thro' me 
This evil came on William at the first. 
But, Mary, foj the sake of him that's gone, 
And for your sake, the woman that he chose. 
And for this orphan, I am come to you : 
You know there has not been for these five years 
So full a harvest: let me take the boy, 
And I will set him in my uncle's eye 
Among the wheat ; that when his heart is glad 
Of the full harvest, he may see the boy. 
And bless him for the sake of him that's gone." 

And Dora took the child, and went her way 
Across the wheat, and sat upon a mound 
That was unsown, where many poppies grew. 
Far off the farmer came into the field 
And spied her not ; but none of all his men 
Dare tell him Dora waited with the child; 
And Dora would have risen and gone to him. 
But her heart fail'd her; and the reapers reap'd, 
And the sun fell, and all the land was dark. 

But when the morrow came, she rose and took 
The child once more, and sat upon the mound; 
And made a little wreath of all the flowers 
That grew about, and tied it round his hat 
To make him pleasing in her uncle's eye. 
Then when the farmer pass'd into the field 
He spied her, and he left his men at work. 
And came and said: "Where were you yesterday? 
Whose child is that? What are you doing here?" 
So Dora cast her eyes upon the ground. 
And answer'd softly, "This is William's child!" 
"And did I not," said Allan, "did I not 
Forbid you, Dora ?" Dora said again, 
"Do with me as you will, but take the child 
And bless him for the sake of him that's gone !" 
And Allan said, "I see it is a trick 
Got up betwixt you and the woman there. 
I must be taught my duty, and by you ! 
You knew my word was law, and yet you dared 
To slight it. Well— for I will take the boy: 
But go you hence, and never see me more." 

So saying, he took the boy, that cried aloud 
And struggled hard. The wreath of flowers fell 
At Dora's feet. She bow'd upon her hands, 
And the boy's cry came to her from the field, 
More and more distant. She bow'd down her head, 
Rememberihg the day when first she came, 
And all the things that had been. She bow'd down 
And wept in secret ; and the reapers reap'd, 
And the sun fell, and all the land was dark. 

Then Dora went to Mary's house, and stood 
Upon the threshold. Mary saw the boy 
Was not with Dora. She broke out in praise 
To God, that help'd her in her widowhood. 
An4 Dora said, "My uncle took the boy; 
But, Mary, let me live and work with you: 
He says that he will never see me more." 
Then answer'd Mary, "This shall never be, 
That thou shonldst take my trouble on thyself: 
And now I think, he shall not have the boy. 
For he will teach him hardness, and to slight 
His mother; therefore thou and I will go 
And I will have my boy, and bring him home ; 
And I will beg of him to take thee back ; 



50 



AUDLEY COURT.— WALKING TO THE MAIL. 



But if he will not take thee back again, 
Then thou and I will live within one house, 
And work for William's child, until he grows 
Of age to help us." 

So the women kiss'd 
Each other, and set out, and reach'd the farm. 
The door was off the latch : they peep'd, and saw 
The boy set up betwixt his grandsire's knees, 
Who thrust him in the hollows of his arm, 
And clapt him on the hands and on the cheeks. 
Like one that loved him; and the lad stretch'd out 
And babbled for the golden seal, that hung 
From Allan's watch, and sparkled by the fire. 
Then they came in : but when the boy beheld 
His mother, he cried out to come to her : 
And Allan set him down, and Mary said: 
" Father— if you let me call you b»— 
I never came a-begging for myself, • 
Or William, or this child ; but now I come 
For Dora : take her back ; she loves you well. 

Sir, when William died, he died at peace 
With all men ; for I asli'd him, and he said, 
He could not ever rue his marrying me — 

1 had been a patient wife: but, Sir, he said 
That he was wrong to cross his father thus: 

' God bless him !' he said, ' and may he never know 
The troubles I have gone thro' !' Then he turn'd 
His face and pass'd— unhappy that I am ! ' 
But now, Sir, let me have my boy, for you 
Will make him hard, and he will learn to slight 
His father's memory; and take Dora back, 
And let all this be as it was before." 

So Mary said, and Dora hid her face 
By Mary. There was silence in the room; 
And all at once the old man burst in sobs: 

"I nave been to blame— to blame. I have kill'd 
my son. 
I have kill'd him— but I loved him— my dear son. 
May God forgive me !— I have been to blame. 
Kiss me, my children." 

Then they clung about 
The old man's neck, and kiss'd him many times. 
And all the man was broken with remorse; 
And all his love came back a hundred fold ; 
And for three hours he sobb'd o'er William's child, 
Thinking of William. 

So those four abode 
Within one house together; and as years 
Went forward, Mary took another mate ; 
But Dora lived unmarried till her death. 



AUDLEY COURT. 

" The Bull, the Fleece are cramm'd, and not a room 
For love or money. Let us picnic there 
At Audley Court." 

I spoke, while Audley feast 
Humm'd like a hive all round the narrow quay. 
To Francis, with a basket on his arm. 
To Francis just alighted from the boat. 
And breathing of the sea. " With all my heart," 
Said Francis. Then we shoulder'd thro' the swarm. 
And rounded by the stillness of the beach 
To where the bay runs up its latest horn. 

We left the dying ebb that faintly lipp'd 
The flat red granite ; so by many a sweep 
Of meadow smooth from aftermath we reach'd 
The griffin-guarded gates, and pass'd thro' all 
The pillar'd dusk of sounding sycamores. 
And cross'd the garden to the gardener's lodge, 
With all its casements bedded, and its walls 
And chimneys muffled in the leafy vine. 

There on a slope of orchard, Francis laid 
A damask napkin wrought with horse and hound, 
Bronght out a dusky loaf that smelt of home. 
And, half-cnt-down, a pasty costly made. 



Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay. 
Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks 
Imbedded and injellied ; last, with these, 
A flask of cider from his father's vats. 
Prime, wliich I knew ; and so we sat and eat 
And .talk'd old matters over : who was dead, 
Who married, who was like to be, and how 
The races went, and who would rent the hall: 
Then touch' d upon the game, how scarce it was 
This season ; glancing thence, discuss'd the farm, 
The fourfleld system, and the price of grain ; 
And struck upon the corn-laws, where we split. 
And came again together on the king 
With heated faces ; till he laugh'd aloud ; 
And, while the blackbird on the pippin hung 
To hear him, clapt his hand in mine and sang : 
" O, who would fight and march and counter- 
march. 
Be shot for sixpence in a battle-fleld. 
And shovell'd up into a bloody trench ^ 

Where no one knows? but let me live my life. 

"O, who would cast and balance at a desk, 
Perch'd like a crow upon a three-legg'd stool, 
Till all his juice is dried, and all his joints 
Are full of chalk ? but let me live my life. 

" Who'd serve the state ? for if I carved my name 
Upon the cliffs that guard my native land, 
I might as well have traced it in the sands ; 
The sea wastes all : but let me live my life. 

"O, who would love? I woo'd a woman once. 
But she was sharper than an eastern wind, 
And all my heart turn'd from her, as a thorn 
Turns from the sea : but let me live my life." 
He sang his song, and I replied with mine: 
I found it in a volume, all of songs, 
Knock'd down to me, when old Sir Robert's pride. 
His books — the more the pity, so I said— 
Came to the hammer here in March— and this — 
I set the words, and added* names I knew. 

" Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, sleep, and dream of me : 
Sleep, Ellen, folded in thy sister's arm. 
And sleeping, haply dream her arm is mine. 

" Sleep, Ellen, folded in Emilia's arm ; 
Emilia, fairer than all else but thou. 
For thou art fairer than all else that is. 

" Sleep, breathing liealth and peace upon her 
breast. 
Sleep, breathing love and trust against her lip: 
I go to-night : I corne to-morrow morn. 

" I go, but I return : I would I were 
The pilot of the darkness and the dream. 
Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, love, and dream of me." 

So sang we each to either, Francis Hale, 
The farmer's son who lived across the bay. 
My friend ; and I, that having wherewithal. 
And in the fallow leisure of my life. 
Did what I would : but ere the night we rose 
And saunter'd home beneath a moon, that,just 
In crescent, dimly rain'd about the leaf 
Twilights of airy silver, till we reach'd 
The limit of the hills ; and as we sault 
From rock to rock upon the glooming quay. 
The town was hush'd beneath us : lower down 
The bay was oily-calm ; the harbor-buoy 
With one green sparkle ever and anon 
Dipt by itself, and we were glad at heart. 



WALKING TO THB MAIL. 

John. I 'm glad I walk'd. How fresh the mead- 
ows look 
Above the river, and, but a month ago, 
The whole hillside was redder than a fox. 
Is yon plantation where this byway joins 
The turnpike? 

James. Yes. 



EDWIN MORRIS. 



51 



John. And when does this come by ? 

James. The mail? At one o'clock. 

John. What is it now? 

James. A quarter to. 

John. Whose house is that I see ? 

No, not the County Member's with the vane : 
Up higher with the yewtree by it, and half 
A score of gables. 

James. That ? Sir Edward Head's : 

But he 's abroad : the place is to be sold. 

John. O, his. He was not broken. 

James. No, sir, he, 

Vex'd with a morbid devil in his blood 
That veil'd the world with jaundice, hid his face 
From all men, and commercing with himself, 
He lost the sense that handles daily life — 
That keeps us all in order more or less — 
And sick of home went overseas for change. 

John. And whither ? 

James. Nay, who knows? he's here and there. 
But let him go ; his devil goes with him. 
As well as with his tenant, Jocky Dawes. 

John. What's that? 

James. You saw the man — on Monday, was it ?— 
There by the hurapback'd willow; half stands up 
And bristles ; half has fall'n and made a bridge ; 
And there he caught the yonnker tickling trout- 
Caught in flagrante — what's the Latin word? — 
Delicto: but his house, for so they say. 
Was haunted with a jolly ghost, that shook 
The curtains, whined in lobbies, tapt at doors, 
And rummaged like a rat: no servants stay'd : 
The farmer vext packs up his beds and chairs, 
And all his hahsehold stuff : and with this boy 
Betwixt his knees, his wife upon the tilt. 
Sets out, and meets a friend who hails him, "What ! 
You 're flitting !" " Yes, we 're flitting," says the 



(For they had pack'd the thing among the beds,) 
"O well," says he, "you flitting with us too — 
Jack, turn the horses' heads and home again." 

John. He left his wife behind ; tbr so I heard. 

James. He left her, yes. I met my lady once : 
A woman like a butt, and harsh as crabs. 

John. O yet but I remember, ten years back — 
'T is now at least ten years — and then she was — 
You could not light upon a sweeter thing: 
A body slight and round, and like a pear 
In growing, modest eyes, a hand, a foot 
Lessening in perfect cadence, and a skin 
As clean and white as privet when it flowers. 

James. Ay, ay, the blossom fades, and they that 
loved 
At first like dove and dove were cat and dog. 
She was the daughter of a cottager. 
Out of her sphere. What betwixt shame and pride, 
New things and old, himself and her, she sour'd 
To what she is: a nature never kind! 
Like men, like manners : like breeds like, they say. 
Kind nature is the best: those manners next 
That fit us like a nature second-hand ; 
Which are indeed the manners of the great. 

John. But I had heard it was this bill that past. 
And fear of change at home, that djove him hence. 

James. That was the last drop in his cup of gall. 
I once was near him, when his bailiff brought 
A Chartist pike. You should have seen him wince 
As from a venomcnis thing; he thought himself 
A mark for all, and shudder'd, lest a cry 
Should break his sleep by night, and his nice eyes 
Should see the raw mechanic's bloody thumbs 
Sweat on his blazon'd chairs ; but, sir, you know 
That these two parties still divide the world — 
Of those that want, and those that have: and still 
The same old sore breaks out from age to age 
With much the same result. Now I myself, 
A Tory to the quick, was as a^ boy 
Destructive, when I had not what I would. 



I was at school — a college in the South: 
There lived a flayflint near: we stole his fruit. 
His hens, his eggS; but there was law for ms; 
We paid in person. He had a sow, sir. She, 
With meditative grunls of much content, 
Lay great with pig, wallowing in sun and mud. 
By night we dragg'd her to the college tower 
From her warm bed, and up the corkscrew stair 
With hand and rope we haled the groaning sow. 
And on the leads we kept her till she pigg'dt 
Large range of prospect had the mother sow, 
And but for daily loss of one she loved, 
As one by one we took them — but for this — 
As never sow was higher in this world — 
Might have been happy: but what lot is pure? 
We took them all, till she was left alone 
Upon her tower, the Niobe of swine. 
And so return'd unfarrow'd to her sty. 

John. They found you out? 

James. ' Not they. 

John. Well— after all— 

What know we of the secret of a man ? 
His nerves were wrong. What ails us, who are 

sound. 
That we should mimic this raw fool the world. 
Which charts us all in its coarse blacks or whites, 
As ruthless as a baby with a worm, 
As cruel as a schoolboy ere he grows 
To Pity— more from ignorance than will. 

But put your best foot forward, or I fear 
That we shall miss th#mail : and here it comes 
With five at top: as quaint a four-In-hand 
As you shall see— three piebalds and a roan. 



EDWIN MORRIS; OR, THE LAKE. 

O ME, my pleasant rambles by the lake. 
My sweet, wild, fresh three quarters of a year. 
My one Oasis in the dust and drouth 
Of city life ; I was a sketcher then : 
See here, my doing : curves of mountain, bridge'. 
Boat, island, ruins of a castle, built 
When men knew how to build, upon a rock. 
With turrets lichen-gilded like a rock : 
And here, new-comers in an ancient hold. 
New-comers from the Mersey, millionnaires, 
Here lived the Hills — a Tudor-chimneyed bulk 
Of mellow brickwork on an isle of bowers. 

O me, my pleasant rambles by the lake 
With Edwin Morris and with Edward Bull 
The curate; he was fatter than his cure. 

But Edwin Morris, he that knew the names. 
Long learned names of agaric, moss, and fern. 
Who forged a thousand theories of the rocks, 
Who taught me how to skate, to row, to swim, 
Who read me rhymes elaborately good, 
His own — I call'd him Crichton, for he seem'd 
All-perfect, finish'd to the flnger nail. 

And once I ask'd him of his early life, 
And his first passion ; and he answer'd me ; 
And well his words became him : was he not 
A fuU-cell'd honeycomb of eloquence 
Stored from all flowers? Poet-like he spoke. 

"My love for Nature is as old as I; 
Bnt thirty moons, one honeymoon to that. 
And three rich sennights more, my love for her. 
My love for Nature and my love for her, 
Of dlft'erent ages, like twin-sisters grew. 
Twin-sisters differently beautifiil. 
To some full music rose and sank the sun. 
And some full music seem'd to move and change 



52 



ST. SIMEON STYLITES. 



With all the varied changes of the dark, 
And either twilight and the day between; 
For daily hope fulfill' d, to rise again 
Revolving toward fulfilment, made it sweet 
To walk, to sit, to sleep, to breathe, to wake." 

Or this or something like to this he spoke. 
Then said the fat-faced curate, Edward Bull : 

"I take it, God made the woman for the man, 
And for the good and increase of the world. 
A pretty face is well, and this is well. 
To have a dame indoors, that trims us up, 
And keeps us tight; but these unreal ways 
Seem but the theme of writers, and indeed 
Worn threadbare. Man is made of solid stuflT. 
I say, God made the woman for the man. 
And for the good and increase of the world." 

"Parson," said I, "you pitch the pipe too low: 
But I have sudden touches, and can run 
My faith beyond my practice into his: 
Tho' if, in dancing after Letty Hill, 
I do not hear the bells upon my cap, 
I scarce hear other music: yet say on. 
What should one give to light on such a dream?" 
I ask'd him half-sardonically. 

"Give? 
Give all thou art," he answer'd, and a light 
Of laughter dimpled in his swarthy cheek ; 
" I would have hid her nefl^le in my heart. 
To save her little finger from a scratch 
No deeper than the skin: my ears could hear 
Her lightest breaths: her least remark was worth 
The experience of the wise. I went and came ; 
Her voice fled always thro' the summer land ; 
I spoke her name alone. Thrice-happy days ! 
The flower of each, those moments when we met, 
The crown of all, we met to part no more." 

Were not his words delicious, I a beast 
To take them as I did ? but something jarr'd ; 
Whether he spoke too largely; that there seem'd 
A touch of something false, some self-conceit. 
Or over-smoothness : howso'er it was, 
He scarcely hit my humor, and I said: 

"Friend Edwin, do not think yourself alone 
Of all men happy. Shall not Love to me, 
As in the Latin song I learnt at school, 
Sneeze out a full God-bless-you right and left? 
But you can talk: yours is a kindly vein: 
I have, I think,— Heaven knows — as much within; 
Have, or should have, but for a thought or two, 
That like a purple beech among the greens 
Looks out of place : 't is from no want in her : 
It is my shyness, or my self-distrust. 
Or something of a wayward modern mind 
Dissecting passion. Time will set me right." 

So spoke I knowing not the things that were. 
Then said the fat-faced curate, Edward Bull : 
" God made the woman for the use of man. 
And for the good and increase of the world." 
And I and Edwin laugh'd ; and now we paused 
About the windings of the marge to hear 
The soft wind blowing over meadowy holms 
And alders, garden-isles ; and now we left 
The clerk behind us, I and he, and ran 
By ripply shallows of the lisping lake, 
Delighted with the freshness and the sound. 

But, when the bracken rusted on their crags. 
My suit had wither'd, nipt to death by him 
That was a God, and is a lawyer's clerk. 
The rentroll Cupid of our rainy isles. 
'Tis true, we met; one hour I had, no more: 
She sent a note, the seal an Elle voua suit, 



The close "Your Letty, only yours;" and thiti 
Thrice underscored. The friendly mist of morn 
Clung to the lake. I boated over, ran 
My craft aground, and heard with beating heart 
The Sweet-Gale rustle round the shelving keel: 
And out I slept, and up I crept ; she moved. 
Like Proserpine in Enna, gathering flowers: 
Then low and sweet I whistled thrice; and she. 
She tum'd, we closed, we kiss'd, swore faith, I 

breathed 
In some new planet: a silent cousin stole 
Upon us and departed: "Leave," she cried, 

"O leave me!" "Never, dearest, never: here 
I brave the worst:" and while we stood like fools 
Embracing, all at once a score of pugs 
And poodles yell'd within, and out they came 
Trustees and Aunts and Uncles. "What, with him !" 
"Go" (shrill'd the cottonspiuning chorus) "him!" 
I choked. Again they shriek'd the burthen "Him !" 
Again with hands of wild rejection "Go! — 
Girl, get you in !" She went— and in one month 
They wedded her to sixty thousand pounds. 
To lands in Kent and messuages in York, 
And slight Sir Robert with his watery smile 
And educated whisker. But for me. 
They set an ancient creditor to work: 
It seems I broke a close with force and arms: 
There came a mystic token from the king 
To greet the sheriff, needless courtesy ! 
I read, and fled by night, and flying tum'd : 
Her taper gliramer'd in the lake below: 
I tum'd once more, close button'd to the storm ; 
So left the place, left Edwin, nor have seen 
Him since, nor heard of her, nor cai^d to hear. 

Nor cared to hear? perhaps: yet long ago 
I have pardou'd little Letty: not indeed. 
It niay be, for her own dear sake but this. 
She seems a part of those fresh days to me ; 
For in the dust and drouth of London life 
She moves among my visions of the lake. 
While the prince swallow dips his wing, or then 
While the gold-lily blows, and overhead 
The light cloud smoulders on the summer crag. 



ST. SIMEON STYLITES. 

Altho' I be the basest of mankind. 
Prom scalp to sole one slough and crust of sin. 
Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven, scarce meet 
For troops of devils, mad with blasphemy, 
I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold 
Of saintdom, and to clamor, mourn, and sob. 
Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer, 
Have mercy, Lord, and take away my sin. 

Let this avail, just, dreadful, mighty God, 
This not be all in vain, that thrice ten years, 
Thrice multiplied by superhuman pangs. 
In hungers and in thirsts, fevers and cold. 
In coughs, aches, stitches, ulcerous throes and 

cramps, 
A sign betwixt the meadow and the cloud, 
Patient on this tall pillar I have borne 
Rain, wind, freJst, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and 

snow ; 
And I had hoped that ere this period closed 
Thou wouldst have caught me up into thy rest, 
Denying not these weather-beaten limbs 
The meed of saints, the white robe and the palm. 

O take the meaning, Lord : I do not breathe. 
Not whisper any murmur of complaint. 
Pain heap'd ten-hundred-fold to this, were still 
Less burthen, by teu-hundred-fold, to bear. 
Than were those lead-like tons of sin, ,that crnsh'd 
My spirit flat before thee. 

O Lord, Lord, 
Thou knowest I bore this better at the first, 



ST. SIMEON STYLITES. 



53 



For I was strong and hale of body then ; 
And tho' my teeth, which now are dropt away, 
Would chatter with the cold, and all my beard 
Was tagg'-d with icy fringes in the moon, 
I drown'd the whoopings of the owl with sound 
Of pious hymn||iand psalms, and sometimes saw 
An angel stand and watch me, as I sang. 
Now am I feeble grown ; my end draws nigh ; 
I hope my end draws nigh : half deaf I am, 
So that I scarce can hear the people hum 
About "the column's base, and almost blind, 
And scarce can recognize the fields I know; 
And both my thighs are rotted with the dew; 
Yet cease I not to clamor and to cry, 
While my stifi" spine can hold my weary head, 
Till all my limbs drop piecemeal from the stone, 
Have mercy, mercy: take away my sin. 

O Jesus, if thou wilt not save my soul, 
Who may be saved? who is it may be saved? 
Who may be made a saint, if I fall here ? 
Show me the man hath suflFer'd more than I. 
For did not all thy martyrs die one death? 
For either they were stoned, or crucified. 
Or burn'd in fire, or boil'd in oil, or sawn 
In twain beneath the ribs ; but I die here 
To-day, and whole years long, a life of death. 
Bear witness, if I could have found a way 
(And heedfully I sifted all my thought) 
More slowly-painful to subdue this home 
Of sin, my flesh, which I despise and hate, 
I had not stinted practice, O my God. 

For not alone this pillar-punishment, 
Not this alone I bore: but while I lived 
In the white convent down the valley there, 
For many weeks about my loins I wore 
The rope that haled the buckets from the well, 
Twisted as tight as I could knot the noose ; 
And spake not of it to a single soul. 
Until the ulcer, eating thro' my skin, 
Betray'd my secret penance, so that all 
My brethren marvell'd greatly. More than this 
I bore, whereof, O God, thou know'est all. 

Three winters, that my soul might grow to thee, 
I lived up there on yonder mountain side. 
My right leg chain'd into the crag, I lay 
Pent in a roofless close of ragged stones ; 
Inswathed sometimes in wandering mist, and twice 
Black'd with thy branding thunder, and sometimes 
Sucking the damps for drink, and eating not. 
Except the spare chance-gift of those that came 
To touch my body and be heal'd, and live: 
And they say then that I work'd miracles. 
Whereof my fame is loud amongst mankind. 
Cured lameness, palsies, cancers. Thou, O God, 
Knowest alone whether this was or no. 
Have mercy, mercy ; cover all my sin. 

Then, that I might be more alone with thee. 
Three years I lived upon a pillar, high 
Six cubits, and three years on one of twelve ; 
And twice three years I crouch'd on one that rose 
Twenty by measure ; last of all, I grew. 
Twice ten long weary weary years to this, 
That numbers forty cubits from the soil. 

I think that I have borne as much as this — 
Or else I dream— and for so long a time. 
If I may measure time by yon slow light. 
And this high dial, which my sorrow crowns — 
So much — even so. 

And yet I know not well. 
For that the evil ones come here, and say, 
"Fall down, O Simeon: thou hast sufler'd long 
For ages and for ages !" then they prate 
Of penances I cannot have gone thro'. 
Perplexing me with lies ; and oft I fall. 
Maybe for i lonths, in such blind lethargies. 
That Heaven, and Earth, and Time are Choked. 

But yet 
Bethink thee. Lord, while thou and all the saints 



Enjoy themselves in heaven, and men on earth 

House in the shade of comfortable roofs, 

Sit with their wives by fires, eat wholesome food. 

And wear warm clothes, and even beasts have stalls, 

I, 'tween the spring and downfall of the light. 

Bow down one thousand and two hundred times, 

To Christ, the Virgin Mother, and the Saints; 

Or in the night, after a little sleep, 

I wake : the chill stars sparkle ; I am wet 

With drenching dews, or stiff with crackling frost, 

I wear an undress' d goatskin on my back; 

A grazing iron collar grinds my neck ; 

And in my weak, lean arms I lift the cross, 

And strive and wrestle with thee till I die: 

mercy, mercy ! wash away my sin. 

O Lord, thou knowest what a man I am ; 
A siuful man, conceived ^nd born in sin : 
'Tis their own doing ; this is none of mine ; 
Lay it not to me. Am I to blame for this. 
That here come those that worship me ? Ha ! ha ! 
They think that I am somewhat. What am I? 
The silly people take me for a saint. 
And bring me offerings of fruit and flowers : 
And I, in truth (thou wilt bear witness here) 
Have all in all endured as much, and more 
Than many just and holy men, whose names 
Are register'd and calendar'd for saints. 

Good people, you do ill to kneel to me. 
What is it I can have done to merit this ! 

1 am a sinner viler than you all. 

It may be I have wrought some miracles. 

And cured some halt and maim'd ; but what of that ? 

It may be, no one, even among the saints. 

May match his pains with mine ; but what of that ? 

Yet do not rise: for you may look on me. 

And in your looking you may kneel to God. 

Speak 1 is there any of you halt or maim'd ? 

I think you know I have some power with Heaven 

From my long penance : let him speak his wish. 

Yes, I can heal him. Power goes forth from me. 
They say that they are heal'd. Ah, hark ! they 

shout 
"St. Simeon Stylites." Why, if so, 
God reaps a harvest in me. O my soul, 
God reaps a harvest in thee. If this be, 
Can I work miracles and not be saved ? 
This is not toM of any. They were saints. 
It cannot be but that I shall be saved ; 
Yea, crown'd a saint. They shout, " Behold a saint !" 
And lower voices saint me from above. 
Courage, St. Simeon ! This dull chrysalis 
Cracks into shining wings, and hope ere death 
Spreads more and more and more, that God hath now 
Sponged and made blank of crimeful record all 
My mortal archives. 

O my sons, my sons, 
I, Simeon of the pillar, by surname 
Stylites, among men ; I, Simeon, 
The watcher on the column till the end; 
I, Simeon, whose brain the sunshine bakes ; 
I, whose bald brows in silent hours become 
Unnaturally hoar with rime, do now 
Prom my high nest of penance here proclaim 
That Pontius and Iscariot by my side 
Show'd like fair seraphs. On the coals I lay, 
A vessel full of sin : all hell beneath 
Made me boil over. Devils pluck'd my sleeve; 
Abaddon and Asmodeus caught at me. 
I smote them with the cross ; they swarm'd again. 
In bed like monstrous apes they crnsh'd my chest: 
They flapp'd my light out as I read : I saw 
Their faces grow between me ^d my book: 
With colt-like whinny and with hoggish whine 
They burst my prayer. Yet this way was left, 
And by this way I 'scaped them. Mortify 
Your flesh, like me, with scourges and with thorns ; 
Smite, shrink not, spare not. If it may be, fast 
Whole Lents, and pray. I hardly, with slow steps, 



54 



THE TALKING OAK. 



'Twere well to question him, and try 
If yet lie keeps the power. 

Hail, bidden to the knees in fern. 

Broad Oak of Suinner-chace, 
Whose topmost branches can ^ceim 

The roofs of Sumner-place ! " 

Say thon, whereon I carved her name, 

If ever maid or spouse, 
As fair as my Olivia, came 

To rest beneath thy boughs.— 

"O Walter, I have shelter'd here 

Whatever maiden grace 
The good old Summers, year by year, 

Made ripe in Sumuer-chace : 

" Old Summers, when the monk was fat. 

And, issuin* shorn and sleek. 
Would twist his girdle tight, and pat 

The girls upon the cheek, 

" Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's-pence, 
And number'd bead and shrift, 

Blufl" Harry broke into the spence, 
And turn'd the cowls adrift: 

" And I have seen some score of those 

■Fresh faces that would thrive 
When his man-minded offset rose 

To chase the deer at five; 

"And all that from the town would stroll, 
Till that wild wind made work 

In which the gloomy brewer's soul 
Went by me, like a stork: 

"The slight she-slips of loyal blood. 

And others, passing praise, 
Strait-laced, but all-too-full in bud 

For puritanic stays: 

"And I have shadow'd many a group 
Of beauties that were born , 

In teacup-times of hood and hoop, 
Or while the patch was worn ; 

"And, leg and arm with love-knots gay. 

About me leap'd and laugh'd 
The modish Cupid of the day. 

And shrill'd his tinsel shaft. 

" I swear (and else may insects prick 
Each leaf into a gall) ' 

This girl, for whom your heart is sick. 
Is three times worth them all; 

" For those and theirs, by Nature's law, 

Have faded long ago; 
But in these latter springs I saw 

Your own Olivia blow, 

"From when she gamboll'd on the greens, 

A baby-germ, to when 
The maiden blossoms of her teens 

Could number five from ten. 

"I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain, 
(And hear me with thine ears,) 

That, tho' I circle in the grain 
Five hundred rings of years— 

"Yet, since I first could cast a shade. 

Did never creature pass 
So slightly, musically made. 

So light upon the grass: 

" For as to fairies, that will flit 
To make the greensward fresh, 



With slow, faint steps, and much exceeding pain, 
Have scrambled past those pits of fire, that still 
Sing in mine ears. But yield not me the praise : 
God only thro' his bounty hath thought fit, 
Among the powers and princes of this world. 
To make me an example to mankind. 
Which few can reach to. Yet I do not say 
But that a time may come — yea, even now. 
Now, now, his footsteps smite the threshold stairs 
Of life— I say, that time is at the doors 
When you may worship me without reproach ; 
For I will leave my relics in your land. 
And you may carve a shrine about my dust. 
And burn a fragrant lamp before my bones, 
When I am gather'd to the glorious saints. 

While I spake then, a sting of shrewdest pain 
Ran shrivelling thro' me, and a cloud-like change. 
In passing, with a grosser nlm made thick 
These heavy, horny eyes. The end ! the end ! 
Surely the end ! What's here ? a shape, a shade, 
A flash of light. Is that the angel there 
That holds a crown ? Come, blessed brother, co'me, 

I know thy glittering face. I waited long; 

My brows are ready. What! deny it now? 

Nay, draw, draw, draw nigh. So I clutch it. Christ ! 

'Tis gone: 'tis here again: the crown! the crown ! 

So now 'tis fitted on and grows to me. 

And from it melt the dews of Paradise, 

Sweet ! sweet ! spikenard, and balm, and frankin- 
cense. 

Ah I let me not be fool'd, sweet saints : I trust 

That I am whole, and clean, and meet for Heaven. 
Speak, if there be a priest, a man of God, 

Among you there, and let him presently 

Approach, and lean a ladder on the shaft, 

And climbing up into my airy home, 

Deliver me the blessed sacrament ; 

For by the warning of the Holy Ghost, 

I prophesy that I shall die to-night, 

A quarter before twelve. 

But thou, O Lord, 

Aid all this foolish people; let them take 

Example, pattern : lead them to thy light. 



THE TALKING OAH. 

Onoe more the gate behind me falls ; 

Once more before my face 
I see the moulder'd Abbey-walls, 

That stand within the chace. 

Beyond the lodge the city lies. 
Beneath its drift of smoke ; 

And ah! with what delighted eyes 
I turn to yonder oak. 

For when my passion first began. 
Ere that, which in me burn'd. 

The love, that makes me thrice a man. 
Could hope itself return'd ; 

To yonder oak within the field 

I spoke without restraint. 
And with a larger faith appeal'd 

Than Papist unto Saint. 

For oft I talk'd with him apart, 
And told him of my choice. 

Until he plagiarized a heart. 
And answer'd with a voice. 

Tho' what he whi^sper'd, under Heaven 
None else could understand; 

I found him garrulously given, 
A babbler in the land. 

But since I heard hinr make reply 
Is many a weary hour; 



THE TALKING OAK. 



I hold them exquisitely knit. 
But far too spare of flesh." 

O, hide thy knotted kuees in feru, 

And overlook the chace; 
And from thy topmost branch discern 

The roofs of Sumner-place. 

But thou, whereon I carved her name, 

That oft hast heard my vows. 
Declare when last Olivia came 

To sport beneath thy boughs. 

" O yesterday, you know, the fair 

Was holden at the town : 
Her father left his good arm-chair, 

And rode his hunter down. 

"And with him Albert came on his, 

I look'd at him with joy : 
As cowslip unto oxlip is. 

So seems she to the boy. 
I 

"An hour had past — and, sitting straight 
Within the low-wheel'd chaise. 

Her mother trundled to the gate 
Behind the dappled grays. 

"But, as for her, she stay'd at home, 

And on the roof she went. 
And down the way you use to come 

She look'd with discontent. 

"She left the novel half-uncut 

Upon the rosewood shelf; 
She left the new piano shut : 

She could not please herself. * 

■" Then ran she, gamesome as the colt. 

And livelier than a lark 
She sent her voice thro' all the holt 

Before her, and the park. 

"A light wind chased her on the wing, 

And in the chase grew wild, 
As close as might be would he cling 

About the darling child : 

"But light as any wind that blows 

So fleetly did she stir, 
The flower, she touch'd on, dipt and rose, 

And turn'd to look at her. 

"And here she came, and round me play'd, 

And sang to me the whole 
Of those three stanzas that you made 

About my 'giant bole;' 

" And in a fit of frolic mirth 

She strove to span my waist; 
Alas, I was so broad of girth, 

I could not be embraced. 

"I wish'd myself the fiiir young beech 

That here beside me stands. 
That round me, clasping each in eara. 

She might have lock'd her hands. 

"Yet seem'd the pressure thrice as sweet 

As woodbine's fragile hold, 
Or when I feel about my feet 

The berried briony fold." 

O muffle round thy knees with fern. 

And shadow Sumner-chace ! 
Long may thy topmost branch discern 

The roofs of Sumuer-place ! 



But tell me, did she read the name 

1 carved with many vows 
When last with throbbing heart I came 

To rest beneath thy boughs ? 

" O yes, she wander'd round and round 

These knotted kuees of mine, 
And found, and kiss'd the name she found. 

And sweetly murmm-'d thine. 

"A teardrop trembled from its source, 

And down my surface crept. 
My sense of touch is something coarse, 

But I believe she wept. 

"Then flush'd her cheek with rosy light, 

She glanced across the plain ; 
But not a creature was in sight; 

She kiss'd me once again. 

" Her kisses were so close and kind, 

That, trust me on my word, 
Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind. 

But yet my sap was stirr'd: 

"And even into my inmost ring 

A pleasure I discern'd, 
Like those blind motions of the Spring, 

That show the year is turn'd. 

" Thrice-happy he that may caress 

The ringlet's waving balm — 
The cushions of whose touch may press 

The maiden's tender palm. 

"I, rooted here among the groves, 

But languidly adjust 
My vapid vegetable loves 

With anthers and with dust : 

" For ah ! my friend, the days were brief 

Wkereof the poets talk, 
When that, which breathes within the leaf, 

Could slip its bark and walk. 

"But could 1, as in times foregone, 
Prom spray, and branch, and stem, 

Have suck'd and gather'd into one 
The life 'that spreads in them, 

"She had not found me so remiss; 

But lightly issuin,^ thro', 
I would have paid her kiss for kiss 
With usury thereto." 

O flourish high, with leafy towers, 

And overlook the lea, 
Pursue thy loves among the bowers, 

But leave thou mine to me. 

O flourish, hidden deep in fern, 

Old oak, I love thee well ; 
A thousand thanks for what I learn 

And what remains to tell. 

"'T is little more; the day was warm; 

At last, tired out with play, 
She sank her head upon her arm, 

And at my feet she lay. 

" Her eyelids dropp'd their silken eaves, 

I breathed upon her eyes 
Thro' all the summer of my leaves 

A welcome mix'd with sighs. 

"I took the swarming sound of life — 
The music from the town — 



5G 



LOVE AND DUTY. 



The murmurs of the dram and fife, 
And lull'd them in my own. 

"Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip, 

To light her shaded eye ; 
A second flutter'd round her lip 

Like a golden butterfly; 

"A third would glimmer on her neck 

To make the necklace shine ; 
Another slid, a sunny fleck, 

From head to ankle fine. 

" Then close and dark my arms I spread. 

And shadow' d all her rest — 
Dropt dews upon her golden head, 

An acorn ia her breast. 

" But in a pet she started up, 
And pluck'd it out, and drew 

My little oakling from the cup, 
And flung him in the dew. 

"And yet it was a graceful gift— 

I felt a pang within 
As when I see the woodman lift 

His axe to slay my kin. 

"I shook him down because he was 

The finest on the tree. 
He lies beside thee on the grass. 

O kiss him once for me. 

"O kiss him twice and thrice for me. 

That have no lips to kiss. 
For never yet was oak on lea 

Shall grow so fair as this." 

Step deeper yet in herb and fern, 

Look further thro' the chace, 
Spread upward till thy boughs discern 

The front of Snmner-place. > 

This fruit of thine by Love is blest, 

That but a moment lay 
Where fairer frait of Love may rest 

Some happy future day. 

I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice, 
The warmth it thence shall win 

To riper life may magnetize 
The baby-oak within.* 

But thou, while kingdoms overset 

Or lapse from hand to hand, 
Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet 

Thine acorn in the laud. 

May never saw dismember thee. 

Nor wielded axe disjoint. 
That art the fairest-spoken tree 

From.kere to Lizard-point. 

O rock upon thy towery top 
All throats that gnrgle sweet ! 

All starry culmination drop 
Balm-dews to bathe thy feet ! 

All grass of silky feather grow — 

And while he sinks or swells 
The full south-breeze around thee blow 

The sound of minster bells. 

The fat earth feed thy branchy root. 

That under deeply strikes ! 
The northern morning o'er thee shoot, 

High up, in silver spikes ! 



Nor ever lightning char thy grain. 

But, rolling as in sleep, 
Low thunders bring the mellow rain. 

That makes thee broad and deep ! 

And hear me swear a solemn oath, 

That only by thy side 
Will I to Olive plight my troth, 

And gain her for my bride. 

And when my marriage morn may fall. 

She, Dryad-like, shall wear 
Alternate leaf and acorn-ball 

In wreath about her hair. 

And I will work in prose and rhyme. 
And praise thee more in both 

Than bard has honor'd beech or lime. 
Or that Thessalian growth, 

In which the swarthy ringdoves sat. 
And mystic sentence spoke ; 

And more than England honors that. 
Thy famous brother-oak. 

Wherein the younger Charles abode 
Till all the paths were dim, 

And far below the Roundhead rode, 
And humm'd a surly hymn. 



LOVE AND DUTY. 

Of love that never found his earthly close. 

What sequel ? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts ? 

Or al)|pthe same as if he had not been ? 

Not so. Shall Error in the round of time 
Still father Truth ? O shall the braggart shont 
For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself 
Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law 
System and empire ? Sin itself be found 
The cloudy porch oft opening on' the Sun ? 
And only he, this wonder, dead, become 
Mere highway dust ! or year by year alone 
Sit brooding in the ruins of a life. 
Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself? 

If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all. 
Better the narrow brain, the stony heart. 
The staring eye glazed o'er with sapless days, 
The long mechanic pacings to and fro. 
The set gray life, and apathetic end. 
But am I not the nobler thro' thy love ? 
O three times less unworthy ! likewise thou 
Art more thro' Love, and greater thau thy years. 
The Sun will run his orbit, and the Moon 
Her circle. Wait, and Love himself will bring 
The d/ooping flower of knowledge changed to fruit 
Of wisdom. Wait: my faith is large in Time, 
And that which shapes it to some perfect end. 

Will some one say, then why not ill for good 
Why took ye not your pastime ? To that man 
My work shall answer, since I knew the right 
And did it: for a man is not as God, 
But then most Godlike being most a man. 

— So let jpe think 'tis well for thee and me — 
Ill-fated that I am, what lot is mine 
Whose foresight pi'eaches peace, my heart so slow 
To feel it ! For how hard it seem'd to me, 
When eyes, love-languid thro' half-tears, would dwell 
One earnest, earnest moment upon mine. 
Then not to dare to see ! when thy low voice. 
Faltering, would break its syllables, to keep 
My own full-tuned,— hold passion in a leash. 
And not leap forth and fall about thy neck. 
And on thy bosom, (deep-desired relief!) 
Rain out the heavy mist of tears, that weigh'd 
Upon my brain, my senses, and my soul ! 



THE GOLDEN YEAR.— ULYSSES. 



57 



For Love himself took part against himself 
To warn us oflf, and Duty loved of Love — 
O this vcorld's curse,— beloved but hated — came 
Like Death betwixt thy dear embrace and mine, 
And crying, Who is this ? behold t^y bride," 
She push'd me from thee. 

If the sense is hard 
To alien ears, I did not speak to these— 
No, not to thee, but to myself in thee : 
Hard is my doom and thine : thou knowest it all. 

Could Love part thus? was it not well to speak, 
To have spokeu once? It could not but be well. 
The slow sweet hours that bring us all things good, 
The slow sad hours that bring us all things ill, 
And all good things from evil, brought the night 
In which we sat together and alone, 
And to the want, that holloWd all the heart, 
Gave utterance by the yearning of an eye, 
That burn'd upon its object thro* such tears 
As flow but once a life. 

The trance gave way 
To those caresses, when a hundred times 
In that last kiss, which never was the last, 
Farewell, like endless welcome, lived and died. 
Then follow'd counsel, comfort, and the words 
That make a man feel strong in speaking truth ; 
Till now the dark was worn, and overhead 
The lights of sunset and of sunrise mix'd 
In that brief night ; the summer night, that paused 
Among her stars to hear us ; stars that hung 
Love-charm'd to listen : all the wheels of Time 
Spun round in station, but the end had come. 

O then like those, who clench their nerves to rush 
Upon their dissolution, we two rose. 
There— closing like an individual life — 
In one blind cry of passion and of pain, 
Like bitter accusation ev'n to death. 
Caught up the whole of love and utter'd it, 
And bade adie* forever. 

Live— yet live — 
Shall sharpest pathos blight us, knowing all 
Life needs for life is possible to will — 
Live happy; tend thy flowers; be tended by 
My blessing ! Should my Shadow cross thy thoughts 
Too sadly for their peace, remand it thou 
For calmer hours to Memory's darkest hold. 
If not to be forgotten — not at once — 
Not all forgotten. Should it cross thy dreams, 
O might it come like one that looks content. 
With quiet eyes unfaithful to the truth. 
And point thee forward to a distant light, 
Or seem to lift a burthen from thy heart 
And leave thee freer, till thou wake refresh'd, 
Then when the low matin-chirp hath grown 
Full choir, and morning driv'n her plough of pearl 
Far furrowing into light the mounded rack. 
Beyond the fair green field and eastern sea. 



THE GOLDEN YEAR. 

Well, you shall have that song which Leonard 

wrote: 
It was last summer on a tour in Wales: 
Old James was with me : we that day had been 
Up Suowdon ; and I wish'd for Leonard there. 
And found him in Llamberis: then we crost 
Between the lakes, and clamber'd half way up 
The counter side ; and that same song of his 
He told me ; for I bauter'd him, and swore 
They said he lived shut up within himself, 
A tongue-tied Poet in the feverous days, 
That, setting the fiow much before the how, 
Cry, like the daughters of the horse-leech, "Give, 
Cram us with all," but count not me the herd ! 

To which "They call me what they will," he said: 
" But I was born too late : the fair new forms, 



That float about the threshold of an age, 

Like truths of Science waiting to be caught — 

Catch me who can, and make the catcher crown'd — 

Are taken by the forelock. Let it be. 

But if you care indeed to listen, hear 

These measured words, my work of yestermorn. 

" We sleep and wake and sleep, but all things 
move: 
The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun ; 
The dark Earth follows wheel'd in her ellipse ; 
And human things returning on themselves 
Move onward, leading up the golden year. 

"Ah, tho' the times, when some new thought can 
bud. 
Are but as poets' seasons when they flower, 
Yet seas, that daily gain upon the shore, 
Have ebb and flow conditioning their march, 
And slow and sure comes up the golden year. 

"When wealth no more shall rest in mounded 
heaps. 
But smit with freer light shall slowly melt 
In many streams to fatten lower lands, 
And light shall spread, and man be liker man 
Thro' all the season of the golden year. 

"Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens? 
If all the world were falcons, what of that ? 
The wonder of the eagle were the less. 
But he not less the eagle. Happy days 
Roll onward, leading up the golden year. 

"Fly, happy happy sails and bear the Press; 
Fly, happy with the mission of the Cross ; 
Knit land to land, and blowing havenward 
With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll, 
Enrich the markets of the golden year. 

"But we grow old. Ah! when shall all men's 
good 
Be each man's rule, and universal Peace 
Lie like a shaft c^f light across the land, 
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, 
Thro' all the circle of the golden year ?" 

Thus far he flowed, and ended ; whereupon 
"Ah, folly!" in mimic cadence answer'd James — 
"Ah, folly ! for it lies so far away. 
Not in our time, nor in our children's time, 
'T is like the second world to us that live-; 
'T were all as one to fix our hopes on Heaven 
As on this vision of the golden j'ear." 

With that he struck his staff against the rocks 
And broke it,— James,— you know him,— old, but full 
Of force and choler, and firm upon his feet. 
And like an oaken stock in winter woods, 
O'erflourish'd with the hoary clematis : 
Then added, all in heat: 

" What stufi" is this ! 
Old writers push'd (the happy season back, — 
The more fools they, — we forward: dreamers both: 
You most, that in an age, when every hour 
Must sweat her sixty minutes to the death, 
Live on, God love us, as if the seedsman, rapt 
Upon the teeming harvest, should not dip 
His hand into the bag: but well I know 
That unto him who works, and feels he works. 
This same grand year is ever at the doors." 

He spoke ; and, high above, I heard them blast 
The steep slate-quarry, and the great echo flap 
And bufifet round the hills from blufl' to blufl'. 



ULYSSES. 

It little profits that an idle king, 

By this still hearth, among these barren crags, 

Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole 

Unequal laws unto a savage race. 

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. 

I cannot rest from travel : I will drink 

Life to the lees : all times I have enjoy'd 



58 



ULYSSES. 



Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those 

That loved me, aud alone ; on shore, and when 

Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades 

Vext the dim sea : I am become a name ; 

For always roaming with a hungry heart 

Much have I seen and known ; cities of men 

Aud manners, climates, councils, governments, 

Myself not least, but honor'd of them all ; 

And drunk delight of battle with my peers, 

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. 

I am a part of all that I have met ; 

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' 

Gleams that uutravell'd world, whose margin fades 

Forever and forever when I move. 

How dull it is to pause, to make an end. 

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use ! 

As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life 

Were all too little, and of one to me 

Little remains : but every hour is saved 

From that eternal silence, something more, 

A bringer of new things ; and vile it were 

For some three suns to store and hoard myself. 

And this gray spirit yearning in desire 

To follow knowledge, like a sinking star. 

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. 

This is my son, mine own Telemachus, 
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle — 
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil 
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild 
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees 
Subdue them to the useful and the good. 
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere 
Of common duties, decent not to fail 



In offices of tenderness, and pay 
Meet adoration to my household gods, 
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. 
There lies the port : the vessel pufl's her sail : 
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners. 
Souls that have'toil'd, and wrought, and thought 

with me — 
That ever with a frolic welcome took 
The thunder aud the sunshine, and opposed 
Free hearts, free foreheads— you and I are old ; 
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil ; 
Death closes all: but something ere the end. 
Some work of noble note, may yet be done, 
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. 
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: 
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the 

deep • 

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 
'T is not too late to seek a newer world. 
Push oflf, and sitting well in order smite 
The sounding furrows ; for my purpose holds 
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 
Of all the western stars, until I die. 
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: 
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, 
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. 
Tho' much is taken, much abides ; and tho' 
We are not now that strength which in old days 
Moved earth and heaven ; that which we are, we 

are; 
One equal temper of heroic hearts, 
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 
To strive, to seek, to And, aud not to yield. 




" There lies the port : the vessel puffs her sail : 
There gloom the dark broad seas." 



LOCKSLEY HALL. 59 



LOCKSLEY HALL. 

CoMBADES, leave me here a little, while as yet 't is early morn ; 
Leave me here, and vrhen you v^ant me, sound upon the bugle horn. 

'T is the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call, 
Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall ; 

Locksley ifall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts, 
And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts. 

Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, 
Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West. 

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade. 
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid. 

Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime 
With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time ; 

When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed; 
When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed: 

When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see ; 

Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be. — 

' In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast; 

In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest ; ^ 

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove ; 

In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. 

Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young. 
And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung. 

And I said, " My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me, 
Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee." 

On her pallid cheek and forehead came a color and a light, 
As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night. 

And she turn'd— her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs- 
All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes- 
Saying, " I have hid my feelings, fearing th|f should do me wron;; ;•• 
Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, "I have loved thee long.' 

Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd It in his glowing hands; 
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. 

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; 
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight. 

Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring, 
And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fulness of the Spring. 

Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships. 
And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips. 

O my cousin, Kiailow-hearted ! O my Amy, mine no more ! 
O the dreary, dreary moorland ! O the barren, barren shore ! 

Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all snnsrs have sung. 
Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue ! 

Is it well to wish thee happy 1 — having known me — to decline 
On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine ! 



m 



LOCKSLEY HALL. 




' Many an eveninf; by the waters did we wutrh the stately ships, 
And our spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips." 



Yet it shall be: thou shalt lower to his level day by day, 

What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with clay. 

As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown, 
J^nd the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down. 

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, 
Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse. 

What is this? his eyes are heavy: think not they are glazed with wine. 
Go to him : it is thy duty : kiss him : take his hand in thine. 

It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought ; 

Soothe him with thy tner fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought. 

He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand — 
Better thou wert dead before me, tho' I slew thee with my hand ! 

Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart's disgrace, 
Koll'd in one another's arms, and silent in a last embrace. 

Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth ! 
Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth ! 

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule ! 
Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of the fool L- 

Well— 'tis well that I should bluster !— Hadst thou Uss unworthy proved- 
Would to God — for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved. 

Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit? 
I will pluck it from my bosom, tho' my heart be at the root. 

Never, tho' my mortal summers to such length of years should come 
As the mauy-winter'd crow that leads the clanging rookery home. 



LOCKSLEY HALL. (51 



Where is comfort ? in division of the records of the mind ? 
Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her, kind ? 

I remember oqa that perish'd : sweetly did she speak and move : 
Such a one do i remember, whom to look at was to love. 

Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore ? 
No— she never loved me truly: love is love forevermore. 

Comfort? comfort scorn'd of devils ! this is truth the poet sings. 
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things. 

Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof. 
In the dead unhappy night, when the rain is on the roof. 

Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall. 
Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall. 

Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep, 
To thy widow'd marriage pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep. 

Thou Shalt hear the "Never, never," whisper'd by the phantom years, 
And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears ; 

And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain. 
Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow: get thee to thy rest again. 

Nay, but Nature brings thee solace ; for a tender voice will cry. 
'Tis a purer life than thine; a lip to drain thy trouble dry. 

Baby lips will laugh me down : niy latest rival brings thee rest. 
Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother's breast. 

O, the child too clothes the father with a deamess not his due. 
Half is thine and half is his : it will be worthy of the two. 

O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part, 

With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart. 

"They were dangerous guides the feelings — she herself was not exempt — 
Truly, she herself had suffer'd " — Perish in thy self-contempt ! 

Overlive it— lower yet— be happy! wherefore should I care? 
I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair. 

What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these? 
Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to golden keys. 

Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the markets overflow. 
I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I should do? 

I had been content to perish; falling on the foeman's ground, 

When the ranks are roll'd in vapor, and the winds are laid with sound. 

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hiirt that Honor feels, 
And the nations do but murmiir, snarling at each other's heels. 

Can I but relive in sadness ? I will turn that earlier page. 
Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous Mother-Age ! 

Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife, 
When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life ; 

Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield. 
Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field. 

And at night along the dusky highway, near and nearer drawn. 
Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn ; 

And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then, 
IJnderneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men ; 

Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new : 

That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do : 

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see. 

Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be ; 



63 LOCKSLEY HALL. 

Saw the heaveus rill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, 
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales ; 

Heard the heavens fill wth shouting, and there raifjd a ghastly dew 
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue ; 

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, 
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm; 

Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd 
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. 

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, 
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law. 

So I triumph'd, ere my passion sweeping thro' me left me dry, 
Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the* jaundiced eye ; 



\J 



Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint, 
■ Science moves, but slowly slowly, creeping on from point to point : 

Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher, 
Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire. 

Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs. 

And the thoughts of men are wideu'd with the process of the suns. 

What is that to hira that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys, 
Tho' the deep heart of existence beat forever like a boy's ? 

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore, 
And the individual withers, and the world is more and more. 

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast. 
Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest. 

Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn. 
They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn : 

Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string ? 
I am shamed thro' all my nature to have loved so slight a thing. 

Weakness to be wroth with weakness ! woman's pleasure, woman's pain— 
Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain : 

Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, mateh'd with mine,, , 
Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine — \y 

Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat 
Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat ; 

Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr'd ; — 
I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish ancle's ward. 

Or to burst all links of habit— there to wander far away. 
On from island unto island at the gateways of the day. 

Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, 
Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise. 

Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag. 

Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the .trailer from the crag ; 

Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the beavy-fruited tree — 
Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea. 

There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind, 
In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind. 

There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathing-space ; 
I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.* 

*■ 
Iron-jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run, 
Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun ; 

Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks. 
Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books— 



GODIVA. 



63 



Fool, again the dream, the faucy ! but I kyiow my words are wild, 
But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child. 

I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains, 
Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains ! 

Mated with a squalid savage— what to me were sun or clime ? 
1 the heir of all the ages, in the foremost flies of time — 

I that rather held it better men should perish one by one. 

Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's moon in Ajalon! 

Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range. 
Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change. 

f Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day : 
, Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. 

Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun : 

Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the Sun- 

O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set. 
Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my fancy yet. 

Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall ! 
Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall. 

Comes a vapor from the margin, blackening over heath and holt, 
Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt. 

Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow; 
For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go. 



GODIVA. 

/ waited for the train at Coventru ; 
J hunr; with grooms and porters on the bridge, 
To toatch the three tall spires; and there I shaped 
The city''s ancient legend into this: 



Not only we, the latest seed of Time, 
New men, that in the flying of a wheel 
Cry down the past, not only we, that prate 
Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well, 
And loathed to see them overtax'd : but she 
Did more, and underwent, and overcame. 




*'Then fled she to her inmost bower, and the 
Unclasp'd tlie wedded eagles of her belt." 



64 



THE TWO VOICES. 



The woman of a thousand summers back, 

Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, who ruled 

In Coventry: for when he laid a tax 

Upon his town, and all the mothers brought 

Their children, clamoring, "If we pay, we starve !" 

She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode 

About the hall, among his dogs, alone, 

His beard a foot before him, and his hair 

A yard behind. She told him of their tears, 

And pray'd him, " If they pay this tax, they starve." 

Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed, 

"You would not let your little finger ache 

For such as these?" — "But I would die," said she. 

He laugh'd, and swore by Peter and by Paul : 

Then flllip'd at the diamond in her ear; 

"O ay, ay, ay, you talk!" — ^^"Alas!" she said, 

"But prove me what it is I would not do." 

And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand. 

He answer'd, "Ride you naked thro' the town, 

And I repeal it ;" and nodding, as in scorn. 

He parted, with great strides among. his dogs. 

So left alone, the passions of her mind. 
As winds from all the compass shift and blow. 
Made war upon each other for an hour, 
Till pity won. She sent a herald forth, 
And bade him cry, with sound of trumpet, all 
The hard condition ; but that she would loose 
The people : therefore, as they loved her well, 
From then till noon no foot should pace the street, 
No eye look down, she passing: but that all 
Should keep within, door shut, and window barr'd. 

Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there 
tJnclasp'd the wedded eagles of her belt. 
The grim Earl's gift ; but ever at a breath 
She linger'd, looking like a summer moon 
Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head, 
And shower'd the rippled ringlets to her knee; 
Unclad herself in haste ; adown the stair 
Stole on ; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid 
From pillar unto pillar, until she reach'd 
The gateway ; there she found her palfrey trapt 
In purple blazon'd with armorial gold. 

Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity: 
The deep air listen'd round her as she rode. 
And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear. 
The little wide-mouth'd heads upon the spout ■ 
Had cunning eyes to see : the barking cur 
Made her cheek flame : her palfrey's footfall shot 
Light horrors thro' her pulses : the blind walls 
Were full of chinks and holes ; and overhead 
Fantastic gables, crowding, stared : but she 
Not less thro' all bore up, till, last, she saw 
The white-flojver'd elder-thicket from the field 
Gleam thro' the Gothic archways in the wall. 

Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity : 
And one low churl, compact of thankless earth. 
The fatal byword of all years to come, 
Boring a little auger-hole in fear, 
Peep'd — but his eyes, before they had their will, 
Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head, 
And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait 
On noble deeds, cancell'd a sense misused ; 
And she, that knew not, pass'd : and all at once. 
With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless 

noon 
Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred towers. 
One after one: but even then she gain'd 
Her bower ; whence reissuing, robed and crown'd. 
To meet her lord, she took the tax away. 
And built herself an everlasting name. 



THE TWO VOICES. 

A STILL small voice spake unto me, 
" Thou art so full of misery. 
Were it not better not to be?" 



Then to the still small voice I said: 
"Let me not cast in endless shade 
What is so wonderfully made." 

To which the voice did urge reply: 

"To-day I saw the dragon-fly 

Come from the wells where he did lie. 

"An inner impulse rent the veil 
Of his old husk : from head to tail 
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. 

" He dried his wings : like gauze they grew : 
Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew 
A living flash of light he flew." 

I said, "When first the world began, 
Young Nature thro' five cycles ran, 
And in the sixth she moulded man. 

" She gave him mind, the lordliest 
Proportion, and, above the rest. 
Dominion in the head and breast." 

Thereto the silent voice replied: 

" Self-blinded are you by your pride : 

Look up thro' night : the world is wide. 

"This truth within thy mind rehearse, 

That in a boundless universe 

Is boundless better, boundless worse. 

"Think you this mould of hopes and fears 
Could find no statelier than his peers 
In yonder hundred million spheres ?" 

It spake, moreover, in my mind : 
"Tho' thou wert scatter'd to the wind, 
Yet is there plenty of the kind." 

Then did my response clearer fall : 
"No compound of this earthly ball 
Is like anothSr, all in all." 

To which he answer'd scofflngly: 
"Good soul! suppose I grant it thee, 
Who '11 weep for thy deficiency? 

" Or will one beam be less intense. 

When thy peculiar difference 

Is cancell'd in the world of sense ?" 

I would have said, " Thou canst not know," 
But my full heart, that work'd below, 
Rain'd thro' my sight its overflow. 

Again the voice spake unto me : 
"Thou art so steep'd in misery, 
Surely, 't were better not to be. 

" Thine anguish will not let thee sleep, 

Nor any train of reason keep : 

Thou canst not think but thou wilt weep." 

I said, "The years with change advance: 
If I make dark my countenance, 
I shut my life from happier chance. 

" Some turn this sickness yet might take, 
Ev'n yet." But he: "What drug can make 
A wither'd palsy cease to shake ?" 

I wept, " Tho' I should die, I know 
That all about the thorn will blow 
In tufts of rosy-tinted snow; 

""Abd men, thro' novel spheres of thought 
Still moving after truth long sought. 
Will learn new things when I am not." 



THE TWO VOICES. 



"Yet," said the secret voice, "some time 
Sooner or later, will gray prime 
Make thy grass hoar with early rime. 

"Not less swift souls that yearn for light, 

Rapt after heaven's starry flight. 

Would sweep the tracts of day and night. 

"Not less the l)ee would range her cells, 
The fnrzy prickle fire the dells, 
The foxglove cluster dappled bells." 

I said that " all the years invent • 
Each month is various to present 
The world with some development. 

"Were this not well, to bide mine hour, 
Tho' watching from a ruiu'd tower 
How grows the day of human power ?" 

"The highest-mounted mind,"ne said, 
"Still sees the sacred morning spread 
The silent summit overhead. 

"Will thirty seasons render plain 
Those lonely lights that still remain, 
Just breaking over land and main? 

"Or make that morn, from his cold crown 
And crystal silence creeping down, 
Flood with full daylight glebe and town ? 

" Forerun thy peers, thy time, and let 

Thy feet, millenniums hence, be set 

In midst of knowledge, dream'd not yet. 

" Thou hast not gained a real height, 
Nor art thou nearer to the light. 
Because the scale is infinite. 

"'T were better not to breathe or speak. 
Than cry for strength, remaining weak, 
And seem to find, but still to seek. 

"Moreover, but to seem to find 

Asks what thou lackest, thought resigu'd, 

A healthy frame, a quiet mind." 

I said, "When I am gone away, ' 
'He dared not tarry,' men will say. 
Doing dishonor to my clay." 

"This is more vile," he made reply, 
"To breathe and loathe, to live and sigh, 
Thau once from dread of pain to die. 

" Sick art thou — a divided will 
Still heaping on the fear of ill 
The fear of men, a coward still. 

" Do men love thee? Art thou so bound 
To men, that how thy name may sound 
Will vex thee lying underground? 

" The memory of the wither'd leaf 
In endless time is scai'ce more brief 
Than of the garuer'd Autumn-sheaf. 

" Go, vexed Spirit, sleep in trust ; 
The right ear, that is flll'd with dust, 
Hears little of the false or just." 

" Hard task, to pluck resolve," I cried. 
"From emptiness and the waste wide 
Of that abyss, or scornful pride ! 

"Nay — rather yet that I could raise 
One hope that warm'd me in the days 
While still I yearn'd for human praise. 
5 



" When, wide in soul and bold of tongue, 
Among the tents I paused and sung. 
The distant battle flash'd and rung. 

"I sung the joyful Poean clear, 
And, sitting, buruish'd without fear 
The brand, the buckler, and the spear— 

"Waiting to strive a happy strife. 
To war with falsehood to the knife, 
And not to lose the good of life — 

" Some hidden principle to move. 

To put together, part and prove. 

And mete the bounds of hate and love— 

" As far as might be, to carve out 
Free space for every human doubt, 
That the whole mind might orb about— 

"To search thro' all I felt or saw, 
The springs of life, the depths of awe, 
And reach the law within the law : 

"At least, not rotting like a weed. 
But, having sown some generous seed, 
Fruitful of further thought and deed, 

"To pass, when Life her light withdraws. 
Not void of righteous self-applause, 
Nor in a merely selfish cause — 

"In some good cause, not in mine own, 
To perish, wept for, honor'd, known, 
And like a warrior overthrown ; 

"Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears, 
When, soil'd with noble dust, he hears 
His country's war-song thrill his ears: 

"Then dying of a mortal stroke. 
What time the foeraan's line is broke. 
And all the war is roll'd in smoke." 

"Yea!" said the voice, "thy dream was good, 
While thou abodest in the bud. 
It was the stirring of the blood. 

"If Nature put not forth hei- power 
About the opening of the flower. 
Who is it that could live an hour? 

" Then comes the check, the change, the fall. 
Pain rises up, old pleasures pall. 
There is one remedy for all. 

"Yet hadst thou, thro' enduring pain, 
Link'd month to month with such a chain 
Of knitted purport, all were vain. 

"Thou hadst not between death and birth 
Dissolved the riddle of the earth. 
So were thy labor little-worth. 

"That men with knowledge merely play'd, 

I told thee— hardly nigher made, 

Tho' scaling slow from grade to grade; 

"Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind, 
Named man, may hope some truth to find. 
That bears relation to the mind. 

"For every worm beneath the moon 
Draws difi'erent threads, and late and soon 
Spins, toiling out his own cocoon. 

"Cry, faint not: either Truth is born 
Beyond the polar gleam forlorn, 
Or in the gateways of the morn. 



66 



THE TWO VOICES. 



"Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope 
Beyond the furthest flights of hope. 
Wrapt JQ dense cloud from base to cope. 

"Sometimes a little corner shines, 

As over rainy mist inclines 

A gleaming crag with belts of pines. 

"I will go forward, sayest thou, 
I shall not fail to find her now. 
Look up, the fold is on her brow. 

"If straight thy tract, or if oblique, 

Thou know'st not. Shadows thou dost strike. 

Embracing cloud, Ixiou-like ; 

"And owning but a little more 
Than beasts, abidest lame and poor, 
Calling thyself a little lower 

" Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl ! 
Why inch by inch to darkness crawl ? 
There is one remedy for all." 

"O dill], one-sided voice," said I, 
"Wilt thou make everything a lie. 
To flatter me that I may die ? 

"I know that age to age succeeds, 
Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, 
A dust of systems and of creeds. 

•'I cannot hide that some have striven, 
Achieving calm, to whom was given 
The joy that mixes man with Heaven : 

"Who, rowing hard against the stream. 
Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, 
And did not dream it was a dream ; 

" But heard, by secret transport led, 
Ev'n in the charnels of the dead, 
The murmur of the fountain-head— 

"Which did accomplish their desire, 
Bore and forbore, and did not tire, 
Like Stephen, an unquenched fire. 

"He heeded not reviling tones. 

Nor sold his heart to idle moans, 

Tho' curs'd and scorn'd, and bruised with stones 

" But looking upward, full of grace. 
He pray'd, and from a happy place 
God's glory smote him on the face." 

The sullen answer slid betwixt: 

"Not that the grounds of hope were flx'd. 

The elements were kindlier mix'd." 

^id, 
Bi* knowing not the univer.se, 
I fear to slide from bad to worse. 

"And that, in seeking to undo 
One riddle, and to find the true, 
I knit a hundred others new: 

"Or that this anguish fleeting hence, 
Unmanacled from bonds of sense, 
Be fix'd and froz'n to permanence : 

"For I go, weak from suflTering here; 
Naked I go, and void of cheer : 
What is it that I may not fear ?" 

"Consider well," the voice replied, 

" His face, that two hours since hath died ; 

Wilt thou find passion, pain, or pride? 



"Will he obey when one commands? 
Or answer should one press his haud.s ? 
He answers not, nor understands. 

"His palms are folded on his breast: 
There is no other thing express'd 
But long disquiet merged in rest. 

"His lips are very mild and meek: 
Tho' one should smite him on the checic, 
And on the mouth, he will not speak. 

"His little daughter, whose sweet face 
He kiss'd, taking his last embrace, 
Becomes dishonor to her race— 

"His sons grow up that bear his name, 
Some grow to honor, some to shame, — 
But he is chill to praise or blame. 

" He will not hear the north-wind rave, 
Nor, moaning, household shelter crave 
From winter rains that beat his grave. 

"High up the vapors fold and swim: 
About him broods the twilight dim : 
The place he knew forgetteth him." 

"If all be dark, vague voice," I said, 
"These things are wrapt in doubt and dread. 
Nor canst thou show the dead are dead. 

"The sap dries up: the plant declines. 

A deeper tale my heart divines. 

Know I not Death? the outward signs? 

"I found him when my years were few; 
A shadow on the graves I knew, 
And darkness in the village yew. 

"From grave to grave the shadow crept: 
In her still place the morning wept : 
Touch'd by his feet the daisy slept. 

"The simple senses crown 'd his head: 
'Omega! thou art Lord,' they said, 
'We find no motion in the dead.' 

"Why, if man'rot in dreamless ease, 
Pihould that plain fact, as taught by these. 
Not make him sure that he shall cease? 

"Who forged that other influence. 

That heat of inward evidence, 

By which he doubts against the sense ? 

"He owns the fatal gift of eyes. 
That read his spirit blindly wise, 
Not simple as a thing that dies. 

"Here sits he shaping wings to fly: 
Ills heart forebodes a mystery: 
He names the name Eternity. 

" That type of Perfect in his mind 
In Nature can he nowl)ere find. 
He sows himself on every wind. 

"He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend, 
And thro' thick veils to apprehend 
A labor working to an end. 

"The end and the beginning vex 
His reason : many things perplex. 
With motions, checks, and counter-checks. 

" He knows a baseness in his blood 

At such strange war with something good, 

He may not do the thing he would. 



THE TWO VOICES. 



r.7 



"Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn, 
Vast images in glimmering dawn, 
Half-shown, are broken and withdrawn. 

"Ah ! sure within him and without, 
Could his dark wisdom find it out. 
There must be answer to his doubt. 

"But thou canst ^answer not again. 
With thine own weapon art thou slain, 
Or thou wilt answer but in vain. 

" The doubt would rest, I dare not solve. 
la the same circle we revolve. 
Assurance only breeds resolve." 

As when a billow, blown against, 

Falls back, the voice with which I fenced 

A little ceased, but recommenced : 

"Where wert thou when thy father play'd 
In his free field, and pastime made, 
A merry boy in sun and shade ? 

"A merry boy they called him then. 
He sat upon the knees of men 
In days that never come again. 

"Before the little ducts began 

To feed thy bones with lime, and ran 

Their course, till thou wert also man : 

" Who took a wife, who rear'd his race, 
Whose wrinkles gather'd on his face, 
Whose troubles number with his days: 

"A life of nothings, nothing-worth. 
From that first nothing ere his birth 
To that last nothing under earth !" 

"These words," I said, "are like the rest, 
No certain clearness, but at best 
A vague suspicion of the breast : 

"But if I grant, thou might'st defend 
The thesis which thy words intend — 
That to begin implies to end ; 

"Yet how should I for certain hold. 
Because my memory is so cold, 
That I first was in human mould ? 

" I cannot make this matter plain, 
But I would shoot, howe'er in vain, 
A random arrow from the brain. 

" It may be that no life is found, 
Which only to one engine bound 
Falls off, but cycles always round. 

"As old mythologies relate, 

Some draught of Lethe might await 

The slipping thro' from state to state. 

"As here we find in trances, men 
Forget the dream that happens then. 
Until they fall in trance again. 

" So might we, if our state were such 

As one before, remember much, 

For those two likes might meet and touch. 

" But, if I lapsed from nobler place. 
Some legend of a fallen race 
Alone might hint of my disgrace ; 

"Some vague emotion of delight 

In gazing up an Alpine height, 

Some yearning toward the lamps of night. 

" Or if thro' lower lives I came — 
Tho' all experience past became 
Consolidate in mind and frame — 



"I might forget my weaker lot; 
For is not our first year forgot? 
The haunts of memory echo not. 

"And men, whose reason long was blind, 
From cells of madness uncouflned. 
Oft lose whole years of darker mind. 

"Much more, if first I floated free, 
As naked essence, must I be 
Incompetent of memory : 

"For memory dealing but with time. 
And he with matter, could she climb 
Beyond her own material prime? 

"Moreover, something is or seems, 
That touches me with mystic gleams. 
Like glimpses of forgotten dreams— 

" Of something felt, like something here . 
Of something done, I know not where ; 
Such as no language may declare.' 

The still voice laugh'd. " I talk," said he, 
" Not with thy dreams. Suffice it thee 
Thy pain is a reality." 

"But thou," said I, "hast miss'd thy mark. 
Who sought'st to wreck my mortal ark. 
By making all the horizon dark. 

"Why not set forth, if I should do 
This rashness, that which might ensue 
With this old soul in organs new? 

"Whatever crazy sorrow saith, 

No life that breathes with humaVi breath 

Has ever truly long'd for death. 

"'T is life, whereof our nerves are scant, 

life, not death, for which we pant; 
More life, and fuller, that I want." 

1 ceased, and sat as one forlorn. 
Then said the voice, in quiet scorn : 
"Behold, it is the Sabbath morn." 

And I arose, and 1 released 

The casement, and the light increased 

With freshness in the dawning east. 

Like soften'd airs that blowing steal. 
When meres begin to uncongeal. 
The sweet church bells began to peal. 

On to God's house the people prest: 
Passing the place where each must rest, 
Each enter'd like a welcome guest. 

One walk'd between his wife and child, 
With measur'd footfall firm and mild. 
And now and then he gravely smiled. 

The prudent partner of his blood 
Leau'd on him, faitliful, gentle, good, 
Wearing the rose of womanhood. 

And in their double love secure, 
The little maiden walk'd demure, 
, Pacing with downward eyelids pure. 

These three made unity so sweet. 
My frozen heart began to beat, 
Remembering its ancient heat. 

I blest them, and they wander'd on: 

I spoke, but answer came there none : « 

The dull and bitter voice was gone. 

econd voice was at mine ear, 
A little whisper silver-clear, 
A murmur, "Be of better cheer.'* 



68 



THE DAY-DREAM. 



As from some blissful neighborhood, 

A notice faintly understood, 

" I see the end, and know the good." 

A little hint to solace woe, 

A hint, a whisper breathing low, 

"I may not speak of what I know." 

Like an ^Eolian harp that wakes 

No certain air, but overtakes 

Far thought with music that it makes: 

Such seem'd the whisper at my side: 

"What is it thou knowest, sweet voice?" I cried. 

"A hidden hope," the voice replied: 

So heavenly-toned, that in that hour 
From out my sullen heart a power 
Broke, like the rainbow from the shower, 

To feel, altho' no tongue can prove. 
That every cloud, that spreads above 
And veileth love, itself is love. 

And forth into the fields I went, 
And Nature's living motion lent 
The pulse of hope to discontent. 

I wonder'd at the bounteous hburs. 
The slow result of winter-showers : 
Yon scarce could see the grass for flowers. 

I wonder'd, while I paced along : 

The woods were fill'd so full with song. 

There seem'd no room for sense of wrong. 

So variously seem'd all things wrought, 
I marvell'd how the mind was brought 
To anchor by one gloomy thought; 

And wherefore rather I made choice 
To commune with that barren voice, 
Thau him that said, "Rejoice! rejoice!" 



THE DAY-DEEAM. 

PROLOGUE. 

O Lady Fi-oba, let me speak: 

A pleasant hour has past away 
While, dreaming on your damask cheek. 

The dewy sister-eyelids lay. 
As by the lattice you reclined, 

I went thro' many wayward moods 
To see you dreaming — and, behind, 

A summer crisp with shining woods. 
And I too dream'd, until at last 

Across my fancy, brooding warm. 
The reflex of a legend past, 

And loosely settled into form. 
And would you have the thought I had. 

And see the vision that I saw, 
Then take the broidery-frame, and add 

A crimson to the quaint Macaw, 
And I will tell it. Turn your face, 

Nor look with that too-earnest eye — 
The rhymes are dazzled from their place, 

And order'd words asunder fly. 

THE SLEEPING PALACE. 

1. 
The varying year with blade and sheaf 

Clothes and reclothes the happy plains : 
Here rests the sap within the leaf. 

Here stays the blood along the veins. 
Faint shadows, vapors lightly curl'd, 

Faint murmurs from the meadows come, 
Like hints and echoes of the world 

To spirits folded in the womb. 



Soft lustre bathes the range of urns 

On every slanting terrace-lawn. 
The fountain to his place returns, 

Deep in the garden lake withdrawn. 
Here droops the banner on the tower. 

On the hall-hearths the festal fires, 
The peacock in his laurel bower. 

The parrot in his gilded v»ires. 

3. 

Eoof -haunting martins warm their eggs: 

lu these, in those the life is stay'd, 
The mantles from the golden pegs 

Droop sleepily : no sound is made, 
Not even of a gnat that sings. 

More like a picture seemeth all 
Than those old portraits of old kings. 

That watch the sleepers from the wall. 

4. 
Here sits the butler with a flask 

Between his knees half-drained ; and theie 
The wrinkled steward at his task, 

The maid-of-houor blooming fair: 
The page has caught her hand in his : 

Her lips are sever'd as to speak : 
His own are pouted to a kiss: 

The blush is fix'd upon her cheek. 

5. 
Till all the hundred summers pass, 

The beams, that through the oriel shine, 
Make prisms in every carven glass, 

And beaker brimm'd with noble wine. 
Each baron at the banquet sleeps. 

Grave faces gather'd in a ring. 
His state the king reposing keeps. 

He must have been a jovial king. 



All round a hedge upshoots, and shows 

At distance like a little wood; 
Thorns, ivies, woodbine, mistletoes. 

And grapes with bunches red as blood -, 
All creeping plants, a wall of green 

Close-matted, bur and brake and brier. 
And glimpsing over these, just seen, 

High up the topmost palace-spire. 



When will the hundred summers die, 

And thought and time be born again. 
And newer knowledge, drawing nigh, 

Bring truth that sways the soul of men 't 
Here all things in their place remain, 

As all were order'd, ages since. 
Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain, 

And bring the fated fairy Prince. 

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 



Year after year unto her feet, 

She lying on her couch alone. 
Across the purpled coverlet, 

The maiden's jet-black hair has grown, 
On either side her tranced form 

Forth streaming from a braid of pearl : 
The slumbrous light is rich and warm, 

And moves not on the rounded curl. 

2. 
The silk star-broider'd coverlid 

Unto her'limbs itself doth mould 
Languidly ever; and, amid 

Her full black ringlets downward roll'd. 



THE DAY-DEEAM. 



G!) 



Glows forth each softly-shadowed arm 
With bracelets of the diamond bright: 

Her coustaut beauty doth inform 
Stillness with love, and day with light. 



She sleeps : her breathings are not heard 

In palace chambers far apart. 
The fragrant tresses are not stirr'd 

That lie upon her charmed heart. 
She sleeps : on either hand upswells 

The gold-fringed pillow lightly prest: 
She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells 

A perfect form in perfect rest. 

THE ARRIVAL. 
* 
1. 

All precious things, discover'd late, 

To those that seek them issue forth ; 
For love in sequel works with fate, 

And draws the veil from hidden worth. 
He travels far from other skies — 

His mantle glitters on the rocks — 
A fairy Prince, with joyful eyes. 

And lighter-footed than the fox. 

2. 
The bqdies and the bones of those 

That strove in other days to pass. 
Are wither'd in the thorny close, 

Or scattered blanching on the grass. 
He gazes on the silent dead, 

"They perish'd in their daring deeds." 
This proverb flashes thro' his head, 

" The many fail : the one succeeds.'.' 



He comes, scarce knowing what he seeks : 

He breaks the hedge : he enters there : 
The color flies into his cheeks: 

He trusts to light on something fair ; 
For all his life the charm did talk 

About his path, and hover near 
With words of promise in his walk, 

And whisper'd voices at his ear. 

4. 
More close and close his footsteps wind ; 

The Magic Music In his heart 
Beats quick and quicker, till he find 

The quiet chamber far apart. 
His spirit flutters like a lark, 

He stoops — to kiss her — on his knee. 
" Love, if thy tresses be so dark. 

How dark those hidden eyes must be !" 

THE REVIVAL. 
1. 

A touch, a kiss ! the charm was snapt. 

There rose a noise of striking clocks. 
And feet that ran, and doors that clapt. 

And barking dogs, and crowing cocks ; 
A fuller light illumined all, 

A breeze thro' all the garden swept, 
A sudden hubbub shook the hall. 

And sixty feet the fountain leapt. 



The hedge broke in, the banner blew, 

The butler drank, the steward scrawl'd, 
The fire shot up, the martin flew, 

The parrot scream'd, the peacock squall'd. 
The maid and page renew'd their strife, 

The palace bang'd, and buzz'd, and clackt. 
And all the long-pent stream of life 

Dash'd downward in a cataract. 



And last with these the king awoke, 

And in his chair himself uprear'd. 
And yawu'd, and rubb'd his face, and spoke, 

" By holy rood, a royal beard ! 
How say you ? we have slept, my lords. 

My beard has grown into my lap." 
The barons swore, with many words, 

'T was but an after-dinner's nap. 

. 4. 

" Pardy," returu'd the king, " but still 

My joints are something stiff or so. 
My lord, and shall we pass the bill 

I mention'd naif an hour ago?" 
The chancellor, sedate and vain. 

In courteous words return'd reply: 
But dallied with his golden chain. 

And, smiling, put the question by. 

THE DEPARTURE. 
1. 
And on her lover's arm she leant. 

And round her waist she felt it fold. 
And far across the hills they went 

In that new world which is the old; 
Across the hills, and far away 

Beyond their utmost purple rim, 
And deep into the dying day 

The happy princess follow'd him. 

2. 

"I'd sleep another hundred years, 

O love, for such another kiss ;" 
"O wake forever, love," she hears, 

"O love, 't was such as this and this.'" 
And o'er them many a sliding star. 

And many a merry wind was borne, 
And, stream'd thro' many a golden bar, 

The twilight melted into morn. 

3. 

"O eyes long laid in happy sleep!" 

" O happy sleep, that lightly fled !" 
" O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep 1" 

" O love, thy kiss would wake the dead !" 
And o'er them many a flowing range 

Of vapor buoy'd the crescent-bark, 
And, rapt thro' many a rosy change. 

The twilight died into the dark. 



"A hundred summers! can it be? 

And whither goest thou, tell me where?' 
" O seek my father's court with me, 

For there are greater wonders there." 
And o'er the hills, and far away 

Beyond their utmost purple rim. 
Beyond the night, across the day. 

Thro' all the world she follow'd hiui. 

MORAL. 
1. 
So, Lady Flora, take my lay. 

And if you find no moral there, 
Go, look in any glass and say. 

What moral is in being fair. 
O, to what uses shall we put 

The wildweed flower that simply blows? 
And is there any moral shut 

Within the bosom of the rose ? 



But any man that walks the mead, 
In bud or blade, or bloom, may find, 

According as his humors lead, 
A meaning suited to his mind. 



70 



AMPHION. 



And liberal applications lie 
In Art like Nature, dearest friend ; 

So 't were to cramp its use, if I 
Should hook it to some useful end. 

L'ENVOI. 
1. 
You shake your head. A random string 

Your liner female sense ofl'ends. 
Well — were it not a pleasant thing 

To fall asleep with all one's friends;. 
To pass with all our social ties 

To silence from the paths of men ; 
And every hundred vears to rise 

Aud learn the world, and sleep again ; 
To sleep thro' terms of mighty wars, 

And wake on science grown to more, 
On secrets of the brain, the stars. 

As wild as aught of fairy lore ; 
And all that else the years will show. 

The Poet-forms of stronger hours, 
The vast Republics that may grow, 

The Federations aud the Powers ; 
Titanic forces taking birth 
In divers seasons, divers climes ; 
For we are Ancients of the earth, 

And in the morning of the times. 

2. 

So sleeping, so aroused from sleep 
Thro' sunny decades new aud strange, 

Or gay quinquenniads would we reap 
The flower and quintessence of change. 



Ah, yet would I— and would I might ! 

So mtich yoirr eyes my fancy take- 
Be still the first to leap to light 

That I might kiss those eyes awake ! 
Foi'^ am I right or am I wrong. 

To choose your own you did not care ; 
You'd have my moral from the song. 

And I will take my pleasure there: ' 

And, am I right or am I wrong, 

My fancy, ranging thro' and thro", 
To search a meaning for the song, 

Perforce will still revert to you ; 
Nor finds a closer truth than this 

All-graceful head, so richly curl'd, 
And evermore a costly kiss 

The prelude to some brighter world. 

4. 
For since the time when Adam first 

Embraced his Eve in happy hour, 
And every bird of Eden burst 

In carol, every bud to flower, 
What eyes, like thine, have waken'd hopes ? 

What lips, like thine, so sweetly joiu'd ? 
Where on the double rosebud droops 

The fulness of the pensive mind ; 
Which all too dearly self-involved. 

Yet sleeps a dreamless sleep to me ; 
A sleep by kisses undissolved. 

That lets thee neither hear nor see: 
But break it. In the name of wife. 

And in the rights that name may give, 
Are clasp'd the moral of thy life. 

And that for which I care to live. 

EPILOGUE. 
So, Lady Flora, take my lay, 

And, if you find a meaning there, 
O whisper to your glass, and say, 

"What wonder, if he thinks me fair?" 
WTiat wonder I was all unwise, 
• . To shape the song for your delight, 



Like long-tail'd birds of Paradise, 
That float thro' Heaven, -and cannot light' 

Or old-world trains, upheld at court 
By Cupid-boys of bloomiug hue— 

But take it — earnest wed with sport, 
And either sacred unto you. 



AMPHION. 

My father left a park to me. 

But it is wild and barren, 
A garden too with scarce a tree 

And waster than a warren: 
Yet say the neighbor* when they call. 

It is not bad but good land, 
And in it is the germ of all 

That grows within the woodland. 

O had I lived when song was great 

In days of old Amphion, 
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate, 

Nor cared for seed or scion ! 
And had I lived when song was great, 

And l^gs of trees were limber, 
Aud ta'en my fiddle to the gate. 

And fiddled in the timber! 

'T is said he had a tuneful tongue. 

Such happy intonation. 
Wherever he sat down and sung 

He left a small plantation ; 
Wherever in a lonely grove 

He set up his forlorn pipes, 
The gouty oak began to move, 

And flounder into hornpipes. 

The mountain stirr'd its bushy crown, 

And, as tradition teaches, 
Y'oung ashes pirouetted down 

Coquetting with young beeches; 
And briouy-vine and ivy-wreath 

Ran forward to his rhyming, 
And from the valleys underneath 

Came little copses climbing. 

The birch-tree swang her fragrant hair, 

The bramble cast her berry, 
The gin within the juniper 

Began to make him merry, 
The poplars, in long order due. 

With cypress promenaded. 
The shock-head willows two and two 

By rivers gallopaded. 

Came wet-shot alder from the wave. 

Came yews, a dismal coterie ; 
Each pluck'd his one foot from the grave, 

Poussetting with a sloe-tree: 
Old elms came breaking from the vine. 

The vine stream'd out to follow. 
And, sweating rosin, plump'd the pine 

From many a cloudy hollow. 

And was n't it a sight to see. 

When, ere his song was ended. 
Like some great landslip, tree by tree. 

The country-side descended ; 
And shepherds from the mountain-eaves 

Look'd down, half-pleased, half-frightea'J 
As dash'd about the drunken leaves 

The random sunshine lighten'd I 

O, nature first was fresh to men. 
And wanton without measure ; 

So youthful and so flexile then, 
Y''ou moved her at your pleasitre. 



LYRICAL MONOLOGUE. 



/ 



Twaug out, my fiddle ! shake the twigs ! 

And miike her dance attendance ; 
Blow, flute, and stir the stift-set sprigs, 

And scirrhous roots and teudous. 

'T is vain I in such a brassy age 

I could not move a thistle ; 
The very sparrows in the hedge 

Scarce answer to my whistle ; 
Or at the most, w'hen thrce-parts-sick 

With strumming aud with scraping, 
A jackass heehaws from the rick, 

The passive oxen gaping. 

But what is that I hear ? a sound 

Like sleepy counsel pleading: 
O Lord ! — 't is in my neighbor's ground, 

The modern Muses reading. 
They read Botanic Treatises, 

And Works on Gardening through there, 
And Methods of transplanting trees, 

To look as if they grew there. 

The wither' d Misses ! how they prose 

O'er books of travell'd seamen, 
And show you slips of all that grows 

From England to Van Diemen. 
They read in arbors dipt and cut, 

And alleys, faded places. 
By squares of tropic summer shut 

And warm'd in crystal cases. 

But these, tho' fed with careful dirt, 

Are neither green nor sappy ; 
Half-conscious of the garden-squirt, 

The spindlings look unhappy. 
Better to me the meanest weed 

That blows upon its mountain, 
The vilest herb that runs to seed 

Beside its native fountain. 

And I must work thro' months of toil, 

And years of cultivation. 
Upon my proper patch of soil 

To grow my own plantation. 
I'll take the showers as they fall, 

I will not vex my bosom: 
Enough if at the end of all 

A little garden blossom. 



WILL WATEEPROOFS LYRICAL MOX- 
OLOGUE. 

MADE AT THE COCK. 

PLUMP head-waiter at The Cock, 
To which I most resort, 

How goes the time? 'T is five o'clock. 

Go fetch a pint of port : 
But let it not be such as that 

You set before chance-comers, 
But such whose father-grap^ grew fat 

On Lusitanian summers. 

No vain libation to the Muse, 

But may she still be kind. 
And whisper lovely words, aud use 

Her influence on the mind. 
To make me write my random rhymes, 

Ere they be half-forgotten ; 
Nor add and alter, many times. 

Till all be ripe and rotten. 

1 pledge her, and she comes and dips 
Her laurel in the wine. 

And lays it thrice upon my lips. 
These favor'd lips of mine ; 



Until the charm have power to make 
New lifeblood warm the bosom. 

And barren commonplaces break 
In full and kindly blossom. 

I pledge her silent at the board ; 

Her gradual fingers steal 
And touch upon the master-chord 

Of all I felt and feel. 
Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans, 

And phantom hopes assemble ; 
Aud that child's heart within the man's 

Begins to move and tremble. 

Thro' many an hour of summer suns 
■ By many pleasant ways. 
Against its fountain upward runs 

The current of my days ; 
I kiss the lips I once have kiss'd : 

The gas-light wa-'ers dimmer; 
And softly, thro' a vinous mist, 

My college friendships glimmer. 

I grow in worth, and wit, and seuse, 

Unboding critic-pen. 
Or that eternal want of pence. 

Which vexes public men, 
Who hold their hands to all, aud cry 

For that which all deny them,— 
Who sweep the crossings, wet or dry,. 

And all the world go by them. 

Ah yet, tho' all the world forsake, 

Tho' fortune clip my wings, 
I will not cramp my heart, nor take 

Half-views of men and things. 
Let Whig and Tory stir their blood ; 

There must be stormy weather ; 
But for some true result of good 

All parties work together. 

Let there be thistles, there are grapes : 

If old thiugs, there are new ; 
Ten thousand broken lights and shapes, 

Yet glimpses of the true. 
Let raff's be rife in prose and rhyme, 

We lack not rhymes and reasons, 
As ou this whirligig of Time 

We circle with the seasons. 

This earth is rich in man and maid ; 

With fiiir horizons bound ! 
This whole wide earth of light and shade 

Comes out, a perfect round. 
High over roaring Temple-bar, 

And, set in Heaven's third story, 
I look at all things as they are. 

But thro' a kind of glory. 



Head-waiter, honor'd by the guest 

Half-mused, or reeling-ripe, 
The pint, you brought me, was the best 

That ever came from pipe. 
But tho' the port surpasses prai.=e. 

My nerves have dealt with stiffer. 
Is there some magic in the place? 

Or do my peptics difler? 

For since I came to live and learn, 

No pint of white or red 
Had ever half the power to turn 

This wheel within my head. 
Which bears a season'd brain about, 

Unsubject to confusion, 
Tho' soak'd and saturate, out and out. 

Thro' every convolution. 

For I am of a numerous house. 
With many kinsmen gay, 



72 



LYRICAL MONOLOGUE. 



Where long and largely we carouse, 

As who shall say me nay : 
Each month, a birthday coming on, 

We drink delyiug trouble, 
Or sometimes two would meet in one, 

And then we drank it double , 

Whether the vintage, yet unkept, 

Had relish flery-new, 
Or, elbow-deep in sawdust, slept, 

As old as Waterloo; 
Or stow'd (when classic Canning died) 

In musty bins and chambers. 
Had cast upon its crusty side 

The gloom of ten Decembers. 

The Muse, the jolly Muse, it is ! 

She answer'd to my call. 
She changes with that mood or this. 

Is all-in-all to all: 
She lit the spark within my throat. 

To make my blood run quicker, 
Used all her flery will, and smote 

Her life into the liquor. 

And hence this halo lives about 

The waiter's hands, that reach 
To each his perfect pint of stout. 

His proper chop to each. 
He looks not like the common breed 

That with the napkin dally ; 
I think he came like Ganymede, 

From some delightful valley. 

The Cock was of a larger egg . 

Than modern poultry drop, 
Stept forward on a firmer leg. 

And cramm'd a plumper crop ; 
Upon an ampler dunghill trod, 

Crow'd lustier late and early, 
Sipt wine from silver, praising God, 

And raked in golden barley. 

A private life was all his joy. 

Till in a court he saw 
A something-pottle-bodied boy 

That knuckled at the taw : 
He stoop'd and clutch'd him, fair and good. 

Flew over roof and casement : 
His brothers of the weather stood 

Stock-still for sheer amazement. 

But he, by farmstead, thorpe, and spire. 

And follow'd with acclaims, 
A sign to many a staring shire. 

Came crowing over Thames. 
Eight down by smoky Paul's they bore. 

Till, where the street grows straiter. 
One flx'd forever at the door. 

And one became head-waiter. 



But whither would my fancy go ? 

How out of place she makes 
The violet of a legend blow 

Among the chops and steaks ! 
'Tis but a steward of the can, 

One shade more plump than common ; 
As just and mere a serving-man 

As any, born of woman. 

I ranged too high : what draws me down 

Into the common day? 
Is it the weight of that half-crown. 

Which I shall have to pay ? 
For, something duller than at first. 

Nor wholly comfortable, 
I sit (my empty glass reversed), 

And thrumming on the table: 



Half fearful that, with self at strife, 

1 take myself to task; 
Lest of the fulness of my life 

I leave an empty flask: 
For I had hope, by something rare. 

To prove myself a poet ; 
But, while I plan and plan, my hair 

Is gray before I know it. 

So fares it since the years began. 

Till they be gather'd up ; 
The truth, that flies the flowing can. 

Will haunt the vacant cup : 
And others' follies teach us not, 

Nor much their wisdom teaches ; 
And most, of sterling worth, is what 

Our own experience preaches. 

Ah, let the rusty theme alone ! 

We know not what we know. 
But for my pleasant hour, 'tis gone; 

'Tis gone, and let it go. 
'Tis gone: a thousand such have slipt 

Away from my embraces. 
And fall'u into the dusty crypt 

Of darken'd forms and faces. 

Go, therefore, thou ! thy betters went 

Long since, and came no more : 
With peals of genial clamor sent 

From many a tavern-door. 
With twisted quirks and happy hits. 

From misty men of letters ; 
The tavern-hours of mighty wits, — 

Thine elders and thy betters. 

Hours, when the Poet's words and looks 

Had yet their native glow : 
Not yet the fear of little books 

Had made him talk for show ; 
But, all his vast heart sherris-warm'd 

He flash'd his random speeches ; 
Ere days, that deal in ana, swarm'd 

His literary leeches. 

So mix forever with the past. 

Like all good things on earth ! 
For should I prize thee, could'st thou last. 

At half thy real worth? 
I hold it good, good things should pass. 

With time I will not quarrel: 
It is but yonder empty glass 

That makes me maudlin-moral. 



Head-waiter of the chop-house here. 

To which I most resort, 
I too must part: I hold thee dear 

For this good pint of port. 
For this, thou shalt from all things suck 

Marrow of mirth and laughter ; 
And, wheresoe'er thou move, good luck 

Shall fling her old shoe after. 

But thou wilt never move from hence, 

The sphere^ thy fate allots: 
Thy latter days increased with pence 

Go down among the pots: 
Thou battenest by the greasy gleam 

In haunts of hungry sinners, 
Old boxes, larded with the steam 

Of thirty thousand dinners. 

We fret, we fume, would shift our skins. 

Would quarrel with our lot: 
Thii care is, under polish'd tine, 

To serve the hot-and-hot; 
To come and go, and come again. 

Returning like the pewit. 
And watch'd by silent gentlemen. 

That trifle w'ith the cruet. 



T0»- 



-LADY CLARE. 



73 



Live long, ere from thy topijiost head 

The thick-set hazel dies; 
Long, ere the hateful crow shall tread 

The corners of thine eyes : 
Live long, nor feel in head or chest 

Our changeful equinoxes, 
Till mellovr Death, like some late guest. 

Shall call thee from the boxes. 

But when he calls, and thou shalt cease 

To pace the gritted floor, 
And, laying down an unctuous lease 

Of life, shalt earn no more : 
No carved cross-bones, the types of Death, 

Shall show thee past to Heaven: 
But carved cross-pipes, and, underneath, 

A pint-pot, neatly graven. 



TO . 

AFTER READING A LIFE AND LETTERS. 

*' Cursed be he that moves my bones." 

Shakespeare'9 Epiiaph. 

YoiT might have won the Poet's name. 
If such be worth the winning novr, 
And gain'd a laurel for your brow 

Of sounder leaf than I can claim ; 

But you have made the wiser choice, 
A life that moves to gracious ends 
Thro' troops of unrecording friends, 

A deedfol life, a silent voice : 

And you have miss'd the irreverent doom 
Of those that wear the Poet's crown : 
Hereafter, neither knave nor clown 

Shall hold their orgies at your tomb. 

For now the Poet cannot die 
Nor leave his music as of old. 
But round him ere he scarce be cold 

Begins the scandal and the cry: 

" Proclaim the faults he would not show : 
Break lock and seal : betray the trust : 
Keep nothing sacred : 't is but just 

The many-headed beast should know." » 

Ah shameless ! for he did b|lt sing 
A song that pleased us from its worth ; 
No public life was his on earth. 

No blazon'd statesman he, nor king. 

He gave the people of his best : 
His worst he kept, his best he gave. 
My Shakespeare's curse on clown and knave 

Who will not let his ashes rest ! 

Who make it seem more sweet to be 
The little life of bank and brier. 
The bird that pipes his lone desire 

And dies unheard within his tree. 

Than he that warbles long and loud 
And drops at Glory's temple-gates. 
For whom the carrion vulture waits 

To' tear his heart before the crowd ! 



LADY CLARE. 

It was the time when lilies blow,' 
And clouds are highest up in air. 

Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe 
To give his cousin. Lady Clare. 

I trow they did not part in scorn : 
Lovers long-betroth'd were they: 



They two will wed the morrow morn : 
God's blessing on the day! 

"He does not love me for my birth. 
Nor for my lands so broad and fair: 

He loves me for my own true worth, 
And that is well," said Lady Clare. 

In there came old Alice the nurse, 
Said, "Who was this that went from thee?' 

" It was my cousin," said Lady Clare. 
" To-morrow he weds with me." 

"O God be thank'd !" said Alice the nurse, 
"That all comes round so just and fair: 

Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands, 
And you are not the Lady Clare." 

"Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse ?'' 
Said Lady Clare, " that ye speak so wild ?" 

"As God 's above," said Alice the nurse, 
"I speak the truth : you are my child. 

"The old Earl's daughter died at my breast. 

I speak the truth, as I live by bread! 
I buried her like my own sweet child, 

And put my child in her stead." 

"Falsely, falsely have ye done, 

mother," she said, " if this be true, 
To keep the best man under the suu 

So many years from his due." 

"Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse^ 

" But keep the secret for your life. 
And all you have will be Lord Ronald's. 

When you are man and wife." 

" If I'm a beggar born," she said, 
" I will speak out, for I dare not lie. 

Pull off, pull off, the broach of gold, 
And fling the diamond necklace by." 

"Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse, 

"But keep the secret all ye can." 
She said "Not so: but I will know 

If there be any faith in man." 

"Nay now, what faith?" said Alice the nurse, 
" The man will cleave unto his right." 

"And he shall have it," the lady replied, 
"Tho' I should die to-night." 

"Yet give one kiss to your mother dear' 

Alas, my child, I sinu'd for thee." 
" O mother, mother, mother," she said, 

" So strange it seems to me. 

" Yet here's a kiss for my mother dear, 

My mother dear, if this be so. 
And lay your hand upon my head. 

And bless me, mother, ere I go." 

She clad herself in a russet gown. 

She was no longer Lady Clare : 
She went by dale, and she went by down 

With a single rose in her hair. 

The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought 

Leapt up from where she lay, 
Dropt her head in the maiden's hand, 

And followed her all the way. 

Dowiw stept Lord Ronald from his tower : 
" O Lady Clare, you shame your worth ! 

Why come you drest like a village maid, 
That are the flower of the earth ?" 

" If I come drest like a village maid, 

1 am but as my fortunes afe : 
I am a beggar born," she said, 

"And not the Lady Clare." 



ST. AGNES. 



" Play me uo tricks," said Lord Ronald, 
"For I am yours in word aud iu deed. 

Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald, 
"Your riddle is hard to read." 

O and proudly stood she up ! 

Her heart within her did not fail : 
She look'd into Lord Ronald's eyes, 

Aud told him all her nurse's tale. 

He laugh'd a laugh of merry scorn : 
He turn'd, and kiss'd her where she stood: 

"If you are not the heiress born, 
Aud I," said he, " the next in blood— 

"If you are not the heiress born, 
Aud I," said he, " the lawful heir. 

We two will wed to-morrow morn, 
Aud you shall still be Lady Clare." 



ST. AGNES. 

Deep on the convent-roof the suowfe 

Are sparkling to the moon: 
My breath to heaven like vapor goes : 

May my soul follow soon ! 
The shadows of the couvent-tovvers 

Slant down the snowy sward. 
Still creeping with the creeping hours 

That lead me to my Lord : 



Make Thou jny spirit pure aud clear 

As are the frosty skies. 
Or this first snowdrop of the year. 

That in my bosom lies. 

As these white robes are soiled and dark. 

To yonder shining ground ; 
As this pale taper's earthly spark, 

To youder argent round ; 
So shows my soul before the Lamb, 

My spirit before Thee ; 
So iu mine earthly house I am, 

To that I hope to be. 
Break up the heavens, O Lord ! and far, 

Thro' all you starlight keen. 
Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star, 

In raiment white and cleau. 

He lifts me to the golden doors ; 

The flashes come and go; 
All heaven bursts her starry floors. 

And strews her lights below, 
Aud deepeus on and up! the gates 

Roll back, aud far within 
For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits, 

To make me pure of sin. 
The sabbaths of Eternity, 

One sabbath deep and wide — 
A light upon the shining sea— 

The Bridegroom with his bride ! 




** Deep on the convent-roof the snows 
' Are sparkling to the moou." 



SIR GALAHAD. 




stalls are void, the doors are wide, 
The tapers burning fair." 



SIR GALAHAD. 

Mr good blade carves the casques of men, 

My tough lauce thrusteth sure, 
My strength is as the strength of ten, 

Because my heart is pure. 
The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, 

The hard brands shiver on the steel, 
The spliuter'd spear-shafts crack and fl3', 

The horse and rider reel : 
They reel, they roll in clanging lists, 

And when the tide of combat stands, 
Perfume and flowers fall in showers, 

That lightly rain from ladies' hands. 

IIow sweet are looks that ladies bend 

On whom their favors fall ! 
For, them I battle to the end, 

To save from shame and thrall : 
But all my heart is drawn above. 

My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine : 
I never felt the kiss of love, 

Nor maiden's hand in mine. 
More bounteous aspects on me beam. 

Me mightier transports move and thrill ; 
So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer 

A virgin heart in work and will. 

When down the stormy crescent goes, 

A light before me swims. 
Between dark stems the forest glows, 

I hear a noise of hymns : 
Then by some secret shrine 1 ride; 

I hear a voice, but none are there ; 
The stalls are void, the doors are wide, 

The tapers burning fair. 
Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth, 

The silver vessels sparkle clean, 



The shrill bell rings, the censer swings, 
And solemn chants resound between. 

Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres 

I find a magic^ark ; 
I leap on board: no helmsman steers: 

I float till all is dark. 
A gentle sound, an awful light ! 

Three angels bear the holy Grail : 
With folded feet, in stoles of white. 

On sleeping wings they sail. 
Ah, blessed vision ! blood of God ! 

My spirit beats her mortal bars. 
As down dark tides the glory glides, 

And star-like mingles with the stars. 

When on my goodly charger borne 

Thro' dreaming towns I go, 
The cock crows ere the Christmas morn. 

The streets are dumb with snow. 
The tempest crackles on the leads. 

And, ringing, spins from brand and mail 
But o'er the dark a glory spreads. 

And gild* the driving hail. 
I leave the plain, I climb the height ; 

No branchy thicket shelter yields : 
But blessed forms in whistling storms 
. Fly o'er waste feus and windy fields. 

A maiden knight— to me is given 

Such hope, I know not fear ; 
I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven 

That often meet me here. 
I muse on joy that will not cease. 

Pure spaces clothed in living beams. 
Pure lilies of eternal peace, 

Whose odors haunt my dreams; 



7C 



TO E. L.— THE LORD OF BURLEIG^ 



And, stricken by an angel's hand, 
This mortal armor that I wear, 

This weight and size, this heart and eyes, 
Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air. 

The clouds are broken in the sky. 

And thro' the mountain-walls 
A rolling organ-harmony 

Swells up, and shakes and falls. 
Then move the trees, the copses nod, 

Wings flutter, voices hover clear: 
"O just and faithful knight of God ! 

Ride on ! the prize is near." 
So pass I hostel, hall, and grange; 

By bridge and ford, by park and pale, 
All-arm'd I ride, whate'er betide, 

Until I find the holy Grail. 



TO E. L., ON HIS TRAVELS IN GREECE. 

Illyeian woodlands, echoing falls 
. Of water, sheets of summer glass, 

The long divine Peneian pass, 
The vast Akrokerauuiau walls, 

Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair, 
With such a pencil, such a pen, 
You shadow forth to distant men, 

I read and felt that I was there: 

And trust me while I turn'd the page. 
And track'd you still on classic ground, 
I grew in gladness till I found 

My spirits in the golden age. 

For me the torrent ever pour'd 
And glisten'd— here and there alone 
The broad-limb'd Gods at random thrown 

By fountain-urns ;— and Naiads oar'd 

A glimmering shoulder under gloom 

Of cavern pillars ; on the swell 

The silver lily heaved and fell ; 
And many a slope was riclf in bloom 

From him that on the mountain lea 
By dancing rivulets fed his flocks, 
To him who sat upon the rocks. 

And fluted to the morninsr sea. 



THE LORD OF BURLEIGH. 

In her ear he whispers gayly, 

" If my heart by signs cau tell. 
Maiden, I have watch'd thee daily, 

And I think thou lov'st me well." 
She replies, in accents fainter, 

"There is none I love like thee." 
He is but a landscape-painter, 

And a village maiden she. 
He to lips, that fondly falter. 

Presses his without reproof: 
Leads her to the village altar. 

And they leave her father's roof. 
"I can make no marriage present; 

Little can I give my wife. 
Love will make our cottage pleasant, 

And I love thee more than life." 
They by parks and lodges going 

See the lordly castles stand ; 
Summer woods, about them blowing. 

Made a murmur in the laud. 
From deep thought himself he rouses. 

Says to her that loves him well. 



" Let us see these handsome houses 
Where the wealthy nobles dwell." 
So she goes by him attended. 

Hears him lovingly converse, 
Sees whatever fair and splendid 

Lay betwixt his home and hers ; 
Parks with oak and chestnut shady, 

Parks and order'd gardens great. 
Ancient homes of lord and lady. 

Built for pleasure and for state. * 

All he shows her makes him dearer: 

Evermore she seems to gaze 
On that cottage growing nearer. 

Where they twain will spend their days. 
O but she will love him truly ! 

He shall have a cheerful home ; 
She will order all things duly. 

When beneath his roof they come. 
Thus her heart rejoices greatly. 

Till a gateway she discerns 
With armorial bearings stately. 

And beneath the gate she turns ; 
Sees a mansion more majestic 

Than all those she saw before: 
Many a gallant gay domestic 

Bows before him at the door. 
And they speak iu gentle murmur. 

When they answer to his call. 
While he treads with footstep firmer, 

Leading on from hall to halh 
And, while now she wonders blindly, 

Nor the meaning can divine. 
Proudly turns he round and kindly, 

"All of this is mine and thine." 
Here he lives in state and bounty. 

Lord of Burleigh, fair and free. 
Not a lord in all the county 

Is so great a lord as he. 
All at once the color flushes 

Her sweet face from brow to chin ; 
As it were with shame she blushes. 

And her spirit changed within. 
Then her countenance all over 

Pale again as death did prove; 
But he clasp'd her like a lover. 

And he cheer'd her soul with love. 
So she strove agaiust her weakness, 

Tho' at times her spirits sauk : 
Shaped her heart with woman's meekness 

To all duties of her rank : 
And a gentle consort made he. 

And her gentle mind was such 
That she grew a noble lady. 

And the people loved her much. 
But a trouble weigh'd upon her. 

And perples'd her, night and morn. 
With the burden of an honor 

Unto which she was not born. 
Faint she grew, and ever fainter. 
As she murmur'd, " O, that he 
Were once more that landscape-painter. 

Which did win my heart from me !" 
So she droop'd and droop'd before him. 

Fading slowly from his side : 
Three fair children first she bore him. 

Then before her time she died. 
Weeping, weeping late and early. 
Walking up and pacing down, 
Deeply mourn'd the Lord of Burleigh, 

Burleigh-house by Stamford-town. 
And he came to look upon her. 
And he look'd at her and said, 
"Bring the dress and put it on her. 

That she wore when she was wed." 
Then her people, softly treading,. 

Bore to earth her body, drest 
In the dress that she was wed in. 
That her spirit might have rest. 



EDWARD GRAY.— Sill LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINEVERE. 



EDWARD GRAY. 

Sweet Emma Moreland of yonder town 
Met me walking on yonder way, 

"And have you lost your heart?" she said: 
" And are you married yet, Edward Gray ; 

Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me: 
Bitterly weeping I turn'd away : 

"Sweet Emma Moreland, love no more 
Can touch the heart of Edward Gray. 

"Ellen Adair she loved me well, 
Against her father's and mother's will : 

To-day I sat for an hour and wept, 
By Ellen's grave, on the windy hill. 

" Shy she was, and I thought her cold ; 

Thought her proud, and fled over the sea ; 
Fill'd I was with folly and spite, 

When Ellen Adair was dying for me. 

•' Cruel, cruel the words I said ! 
Cruelly came they back to-day: 



'You 're too slight and fickle,' I said, 
'To trouble the heart of Edward Gray. 

"There I put my face in the grass — 
Whisper'd, 'Listen to my despair: 

I repent me of all I did: 
Speak a little, Ellen Adair !' 

" Then I took a pencil and wrote 
On the mossy stone, as I lay, 

' Here lies the body of Ellen Adair ; 
And here the heart of Edward Gray !' 

"Love may come, and love may go. 
And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree ; 

But I will love no more, no more. 
Till Ellen Adair come back to me. 

"Bitterly wept I over the stone: 
Bitterly weeping I turn'd away: 

There lies the body of Ellen Adair ! 
And there the heart of Edward Gray !" 




' Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to n 
Bitterly weeping I turn'd away.' 



SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINE- 
VERE. 

A FRAGMENT. 

LricE souls that balance joy and pain, 
With tears and smiles from heaven again 
The maiden Spring upon the plain 
Came iu a sunlit fall of rain. 

In crystal vapor everywhere 
Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between, 
• And, far in forest-deeps unseen, 
The topmost elm-tree gather'd green 

From draughts of balmy air. 



Sometimes the linnet piped his song: 
Sometimes the throstle whistled strong: 
Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along, 
Hush'd all the groves from fear of wronc 

By grassy capes with fuller sound 
In curves the yellowing river ran. 
And drooping chestnut-buds began 
To spread into the perfect fan. 

Above the teeming ground. 

Then, in the boyhood of the year. 
Sir Lauucelot and Queen Guineve e 
Rode thro' the coverts of the deer, . 
With blissful treble ringing clear. 



A FAREWELL.— THE VISION -OF SIN. 



She Beem'd a part of joyous Spring; 
A govvii of grass-green silk she wore, 
Buckled with golden clasps before ; 
A light-green tuft of plumes she bore 

Closed in a golden ring. 

Now on some twisted ivy-net, 

Now by some tinkling rivulet, 

3n mosses mixt with violet 

Her cream-white mule his pastern set; 

And fleeter now she skimm'd the plains 
Than she whose elfin prancer springs 
By night to eery warblings, 
When all the glimmering moorland rings 

With jingling bridle-reibs. 

As she fled fast thro' sun and shade. 
The happy winds upon Iter play'd, 
Blowing the ringlet from the braid: 
She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd 

The rein with daiuty finger-tip?, 
A man had given all other bliss. 
And all his worldly worth for this, 
To waste his whole heart in one kiss 

Upon ber perfect lips. 



A FAREWELL. 

Fi.ovv down, cold rivulet, to the sen. 

Thy tribute wave deliver: 
No more by thee my steps shall be. 

Forever and forever. 

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea, 

A rivulet then a river: 
Nowhere by thee wy steps shall be, 

Forever and forever. 

But here will sigh thine alder tree, 
And here thine aspen shiver; 

And here by thee will hum the bee, 
Forever and forever. 

A thousand suns will stream on thee, 
A thousand moons will quiver ; 

But not by thee my steps shall be. 
Forever and forever. 



THE VISION OF SIN. 
1. 

I HAD a vision when the night was late : 
A youth came riding toward a palace-gato. 
He rode a horse with wings, that would have flown, 
But that his heavy rider kept him down. 
And from the palace came a child of sin. 
And took him by the curls, and led him in. 
Where sat a company with heated eyes, 
Expecting when a fountain shoyld arise: 
A sleepy light upon their brows and lips— 
As when the sun, a crescent of eclipse, 
Dreams over lake and lawn, and isles and c.ipes— 
Suffused them, sitting, lying, languid siiapes, 
By heaps of gourds, and skins of wine, and piles of 
grapes. 



Then methought I heard a mellow sound, 
Gathering up from all the lower ground ; 
Narrowing in to where they sat assembled 
Low voluptuous music winding trembled, 
Wov'n in qrcles : they that heard it sigh'd, 
Panted hand in hand with faces pale, 



Swung themselves, and in low tones replied ; 

Till the fountain spouted, showering wide 

Sleet of diamond-drift and pearly hail ; 

Then the music touch'd the gates and died; 

Rose again from where it seem'd to fail, 

Storm'd in orbs of song, a growing gale ; 

Till thronging in and in, to where they waited, 

As 't were a hundred-throated nightingale. 

The strong tempestuous treble throbb'd and paipi' 

tated ; 
Ran into its giddiest whirl of sound, 
Caught the sparkles, and in circles. 
Purple gauzes, goldeu hazes, liquid mazes, 
Flung the torrent rainbow round : 
Then they started from their places, 
Moved with violence, changed in hue. 
Caught each other with wild grimaces, 
Half-invisible to the view. 
Wheeling with precipitate paces 
To the melody, till they flew. 
Hair, and eyes, and limbs, and faces. 
Twisted hard in fierce embraces, 
Like to Furies, like to Graces, 
Dash'd together in blinding dew: 
Till, kill'd with some luxurious agony. 
The nerve-dissolving melody 
Flutter'd headlong from the sky. 

3. 
And then I look'd up toward a Aountain-tract, 
That girt the region with high clift' and lawn : 
I saw that every morning, far withdrawn 
Beyond the darkness and the cataract, 
God made himself an awful rose of dawn, 
Unheeded: and detachiig, fold by fold. 
From those siill heights, and, slowly drawing ne:ir; 
A vapor heavj-, hueless, formless, cold, 
Came floating on for many a month and 3'ear, 
Unheeded : and I thought I would have spoken, 
And warned that madman ere it grew too late: 
But, as in dreams, I could not. Mine was broken, 
When that cnkl vapor touch'd the palace gate. 
And link'd again. I saw within my head 
A gray and gap-tooth'd man as lean as death, 
Who slowly rode across a wither'd heath, 
And lighted at a ruiu'd inn, and said: 



"Wrinkled hostler, grim and thiui 
Here is custom come your way; 

Take my brute, and lead him in, 
Stiift' his ribs with mouldy hay. 

"Bitter barmaid, waning fast! 

See that sheets are on my bed 
What! the flower of life is past: 

It is long before you wed. 

"Slip-shod waiter, lank and sour, 
At the Dragon on the heath ! 

Let us have a quiet hour, 
Let us hob-aud-uob with Death. 

"I am old, bitt let me drink; 

Bring me spices, bring me wine 
I remember, when I thiuk, 

That my youth was half divine. 

" Wine is good for shrivell'd lips, 
When a blanket wraps the day, 

When the rotten woodland drips, 
And the leaf is stamp'd in clay. 

"Sit thee down, and have no shame, 
Cheek by jowl, and knee by knee : 

What care I for any name? 
What for order or degree? 



THE VISION OF SIN. 



79 



"Let lue surew thee up a peg: 
Let me loose thy toDgue with wine: 

Callest thou that thing a leg ? 
Which is thiuuest? thine or mine? 

"Thou Shalt not be saved by works: 

Thou hast been a sinner too : 
Ruin'd. trunks on wither'd forks, 

Empty scarecrows, I and you ! 

"Fill the cup, and fill the can : 

Have a rouse before the morn : 
Every moment dies a man, 

Every moment one is born. 

" We are men of rnin'd blood ; 

Therefore comes it we are wise. 
Fish are we that love the mud. 

Rising to no fancy-flies. 

"Name and fame! to fly sublime 

Through the courts, the camps, the schools, 
Is to be the ball of Time, 

Bandied in the hands of fools. 

" Friendship !— to be two in one- 
Let the canting liar pack ! 

Well I know, when I am gone. 
How she mouths behind my back. 

" Virtue !— to be good and just — 

Every heart, when sifted well, 
Is a clot of warmer dust, 

Mix'd with cunning sparks of hell. 

" O ! we two as well can look 

Whited thought and cleanly life 
As the priest, above his book 

Leering at his neighbor's wife. 

"Fill the cup, and fill the can: 

Have a rouse before the morn : 
Every moment dies a man, 

Every moment one is born. 

"Drink, and let the parties rave: 

They are fill'd with idle spleen ; 
Rising, falling, like a wave. 

For they know not what they mean. 

" He' that roars for liberty 

Faster binds a tyrant's power ; 
And the tyrant's cruel glee 

Forces on the freer hour. 

"Fill the can, and fill the cup: 

All the windy ways of men 
Are but dust that rises up. 

And is lightly laid again. 

"Greet her with applausive breath, 

Freedom, gayly doth she tread ; 
In her right a civic wreath. 

In her left a human head 

"No, I love not what is new; 

She is of an ancient house : 
And I think we know the hue 

Of that cap upon her brows. 

" Let her go ! her thirst she sl«ikcs 

Where the bloody conduit runs : 
Then her sweetest meal she makes 

On the first-born of her sons. 

•' Drink to lofty hopes that cool- 
Visions of a perfect State : 

Drink we, last, the public fool, 
Frantic love and frantic hate. 

"Chnnt me now some wicked stave. 
Till thy drooping courage rise, 



And the glow-worm of the grave 
Glimmer in thy rheumy eyes. 

"Fear not thou to loose thy tongue : 

Set thy hoary fancies free ; 
What is loathsome to the young 

Savors well to thee and me. 

" Change, reverting to the years, 
When thy nerves could understand 

What there is in loving tears. 
And the warmth of hand in hand. 

"Tell me tales of thy first love — 
April hopes, the fools of chance : 

Till the graves begin to move. 
And the dead begin to dance. 

" Fill the can, and fill the cup : 
All the windy ways of men 

Are but dust that rises up. 
And is lightly laid again. 

"Trooping from their mouldy deus 
The chap-fallen circle spreads : 

Welcome, fellow-citizens, 
Hollow hearts and empty heads ! 

" You are bones, and what of that? 

Every face, however full. 
Padded rotrud with flesh and fat. 

Is but modell'd on a skull. 

"Death is king, and Vivat Rex! 

Tread a measure on the stones, 
Madam — if I know your sex. 

From the fashioa of your bones. 

" No, I cannot praise the fire 
In your eye — nor yet your lip : 

All the more do I admire 
Joints of cunning workmanship. 

"Lo! God's likeness— the grouud-plan- 
Neither modell'd, glazed, or framed. 

Buss me, thou rongh sketch of man, 
Far too naked to be shamed ! 

"Drink to Fortune, drink to Chance, 
While we keep a little breath ! 

Drink to heavy Ignorance ! 
Hob-and-uob with brother Death ; 

" Thou art mazed, the night is long, 
And the longer night is near: 

What ! I am not all as wrong 
As a bitter jest is dear. 

"Youthful hopes, by scores, to all, 
When the locks are crisp and cnrl'd ; 

Unto me my maudlin gall 
And my mockeries of the world. 

" Fill the cup, and fill the can ! 

Mingle madness, mingle scorn ! 
Dregs of life, and lees of man : 

Yet we will not die forloi#" 



The voice grew faint : there came a further chan^'c 
Once more uprose the mystic mountain-range : 
Below were men and horses pierced with worms, 
And slowly quickening into lower forms ; 
By shards and scurf of salt, and scum of dross, 
Old plash of rains, and refuse patch'd with moss. 
Then some one spake : " Behold ! it was a crhv.c 
Of sense avenged by sense that wore with time." 
Another said: "The crime of sense became 
The crime of malice, and is equal blame." 



80 



THE EAGLE. 



And one : " He had not wholly quench'd his power ; 
A little grain of conscience made him sour." 
At last I heard a voice upon the slope 
Cry to the summit, "Is there any hope?" 
To which an answer peal'd from that high land, 
But in a tongue no man could understand; 
And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn 
God made Himself an awful rose of dawn. 



Co.ME not, when I am dead. 

To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave, 
To trample round my fallen head, 

And vex the imhappy dust thou wonldst not save. 
There let the wind sweep and the plover ciy ; 
But thou, go by. 

Child, if it were thine error or thy crime 

I care no longer, being all nnblest : 
Wed whom thou wilt, but I am sick of Time, 

And I desire to rest. 
Pass on, weak heart, and leave me where 1 lie: 
Go by, go by. 



THE EAGLE. 

FRAGMENT. 

He clasps the crag with hooked hands ; 
Close to the sun in lonely lands, 
Eing'd with the azure world, he stands. 



The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; 
He watches from his mountain walls, 
And like a thunderbolt he falls. 



Move eastward, happy earth, and lcav( 
Yon orange sunset waning slow ; 

From fringes of the faded eve, 
O, happy planet, eastward go : 

Till over thy dark shoulder glow 
Thy silver sister-world, and rise 
To glass herself in dewy eyes 

That watch me from the glen below. 

Ah, bear me with thee, lightly borne, 
Dip forward under starry light. 

And move me to my marriage-morn. 
And round again to happy night. 



Break, break, break. 

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! 
And I would that my tongue could utter 

The thoughts that arise in me. 

O well for the fisherman's boy. 
That he shouts with his sister at play I 

O well for the sailor lad. 
That he sings in his boat on the bay i 




'^■»ii^r>' 



" Break, break, break, 

On tUy cold gray stones, Sea !" 



THE BEGGAR MAID.— THE POET'S SONG. 



81 



And the stately ships go on 
To their haveu under the hill ; 

But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, 
And the sound of a voice that is still ! 

Break, break, break, 

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea ! 
But the tender grace of a day that is dead 

Will never come back to me. 



THE BEGGAR MAID. 

IIeb arms across her breast she laid ; 

She was more fair than words can say 
Barefooted came the beggar maid 

Before the king Cophetua. 
In robe and crown the king stept down, 

To meet and greet her on her way ; 
" It is no wonder," said the lords, 

"She is more beautiful than day." 

As shines the moon in clouded skies, 
She in her poor attire was seen : 

One praised her ankles, one her eyes, 
One her dark hair and loveeome mien. 



So sweet a face, such angel grace, 
In all that land had never been: 

Cophetua sware a royal oath : 
"This beggar maid shall be my queen!" 



THE POET'S SONG. 

The rain had fallen, the Poet arose, 

He pass'd by the town and out of the street, 
A light wind blew from the gates of the sun. 

And waves of shadow went over the wheat, 
And he sat him down in a lonely place. 

And chanted a melody loud and sweet, 
That made the wild-swan pause in her cloud. 

And the lark drop down at his feet. 

The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee, 

The snake slipt under a spray. 
The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak. 

And stared, with his foot on the prey. 
And the nightingale thought, "I have sung many 
songs, 

But never a one so gay. 
For he sings of what the world will be 

When the years have died away." 




' In robe and crown the king stept down, 
To meet and greet her on her way.'* 

6 



82 



THE PRINCESS : A MEDLEY. 



THE PRINCESS: 
A MEDLEY. 



TO 

HENRY LUSHINGTON 

VOLUME IS INSCRIBED BT HII 



FRIEND 

A. TENNYSON. 



PROLOGUE. 

Sir Walter Vivian all a summer's day 
Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun 
Up to the people : thither flock'd at noon 
His tenants, wife and child, and thither half 
The neighboring borough with their Institute 
Of which he was the patron. I was there 
From college, visiting the son, — the son 
A Walter too, — with others of our set. 
Five others: we were seven at Vivian-place. 

And me that morning Walter show'd the house, 
Greek, set with busts : from vases in the hall 
Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names, 
Grew side by side ; and on the pavement lay 
Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park. 
Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time ; 
And on the tables every clime and age 
Jumbled together: celts and calumets, 
Claymore and snow-shoe, toys in lava, fans 
Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries, 
Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere. 
The cursed Malayan crease, and battle-clubs 
From the isles of palm : and higher on the walls. 
Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer, 
His own forefathers' arms and armor hung. 

And "this," he said, "was Hugh's at Agincourt; 
And that was old Sir Ealph's at Ascalon : 
A good knight he ! we keep a chronicle 
With all about him," — which he brought, and I 
Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights 
Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings 
Who laid about them at their wills and died ; 
And mixt with these, a lady, one that arm'd 
Her own fair head, and salljnng thro' the gate. 
Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls. 

" O miracle of women," said the book, 
" O noble heart who, being strait-besieged 
By this veild king to force her to his wsh. 
Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunn'd a soldier's death, 
But now when all was lost or seera'd as lost — 
Her stature more than mortal in the burst 
Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fire — 
Brake with a blast of trumpets from the gate. 
And, faying on them like a thunderbolt. 
She trampled some beneath her horses' heels. 
And some were whelm'd with missiles of the wall. 
And some were push'd with lances from the rock, 
And part were drown'd within the whirling brook: 
O miracle of noble womanhood !" 

So sang the gallant glorious chronicle ; 
And, I all rapt in this, "Come out," he said, 
"To the Abbey: there is Aunt Elizabeth 



And sister Lilia with the rest." We went 

(I kept the book and had my finger in it) 

Down thro' the park: strange was the sight to me; 

For all the sloping pasture murmur'd, sown 

With happy faces and with holiday. 

There moved the multitude, a thousand heads ; 

The patient leaders of their Institute 

Taught them with facts. One rear'd a font of stone 

And drew from butts of water on the slope, 

The fountain of the moment, playing now 

A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls, 

Or steep-up spout whereon the gilded ball 

Danced like a wisp : and somewhat lower down 

A man with knobs and wires and vials fired 

A cannon : Echo auswer'd in her sleep 

From hollow fields : and here were telescopes 

For azure views ; and there a group of girls 

In circle waited, whom the electric shock 

Dislink'd with shrieks and laughter: round the lake 

A little clock-work steamer paddling plied 

And shook the lilies : perch'd about the knolls 

A dozen angry models jetted steam: 

A petty railway ran : a fire-balloon 

Rose gem-like up before the dusky groves 

And dropt a fairy parachute and past: 

And there thro' twenty posts of telegraph 

They flash'd a saucy message to and fro 

Between the mimic stations; so that sport 

Went hand in hand with Science ; otherwhere 

Pure sport : a herd of boys with clamor bowl'd. 

And stump'd the wicket ; babies roll'd about 

Like tumbled fruit in grass ; and men and maids 

Arranged a country dance, and flew thro' light 

And shadow, while the twangling violin 

Struck up with Soldier-laddie, and overhead 

The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty lime 

Made noise with bees and breeze from end to end. 

Strange was the sight and smacking of the time ; 
And long we gazed, but satiated at length 
Came to the ruins. High-arch'd and ivy-claspt, 
Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire. 
Thro' one wide chasm of time and frost they gave 
The park, the crowd, the house ; but all within 
The sward was trim as any garden lawn: 
And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth, 
And Lilia with the rest, and lady friends 
From neighbor seats: and there was Ralph himself. 
A broken statue propt against the wall. 
As gay as any. Lilia, wild with sport. 
Half child, half woman as she was, had wound 
A scarf of orange round the stony helm. 
And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk. 
That made the old warrior from his ivied nook 
Glow like a sunbeam: near his tomb a feast 
Shone, silver-set ; about it lay the guests. 
And there we joined them : then the maiden Aunt 



THE PRINCESS : A MEDLEY. 



83 



Took this fair day for text, and from it preach'd 
An universal culture for the crowd, 
And all things great ; but we, nnworthier, told 
Of College : he had cllmb'd across the spikes, 
And he had squeezed himself betwixt the bars, 
And he had breathed the Proctor's dogs : and one 
Discnss'd his tutor, rough to common men, 
But honeying at the whisper of a lord ; 
And one the Master, as a rogue in grain 
Veneer'd with sanctimonions theory. 

But while they talk'd, above their heads I saw 
The feudal warrior lady-clad ; which brought 
My book to mind: and opening this I read 
Of old Sir Ralph a page or two that rang 
With tilt and tourney ; then the tale of her 
That drove her foes with slaughter from her walls, 
And much I praised her nobleness, and " Where," 
Ask'd Walter, patting Lilia's head (she lay 
Beside him) "lives there such a woman now ?" 

Quick answer'd Lilia, "There are thousands now 
Such women, but convention beats them down: 
It is but bringing up ; no more than that : 
You men have done it : how I hate you all ! 
Ah, were I something great ! I wish I were 
Some mighty poetess, I would shame you then. 
That love to keep us children ! O I wish 
That I were some great Princess, I would build 
Far off from men a college like a man's. 
And I would teach them all that men are taught : 
We are twice as quick '." And here she shook aside 
The hand that play'd the patron with her curls. 

And one said smiling, " Pretty were the sight 
If our old halls could change their sex, and flaunt 
With prudes for proctors, dovi'agers for deans. 
And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair. 
I think they should not wear our rusty gowns, 
But move as rich as Emperor-moths or Ralph 
Who shines so in the corner ; yet I fear. 
If there were many Lilias in the brood. 
However deep you might embower the nest. 
Some boy would spy it." 

At this upon the sward 
She tapt her tiny silkeu-sandal'd foot: 
"That's your light way: but I would make it death 
For any male thing but to peep at us." 

Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laugh'd ; 
A rose-bud set with little vidlful thorns. 
And sweet as English air could make her, she: 
But Walter hail'd a score of names upon her, 
And "petty Ogress," and "ungrateful Puss," 
And swore he long'd at College, only long'd, 
All else was well, for she-society. 
They boated and they cricketed; they talk'd 
At wine, in clubs, of art, of politics ; 
They lost their weeks ; they vest the souls of deans ; 
They rode ; they betted ; made a hundred friends. 
And caught the blossom of the flying terms, 
But miss'd the mignonette of Vivian-place, 
The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke, 
Part banter, part affection. 

"True," she said, 
"We doubt not that. O yes, you miss'd us much. 
I '11 stake my ruby ring upon it you did." 

She held it out ; and as a parrot turns 
Up thro' gilt wires a crafty loving eye. 
And takes a lady's finger with all care, 
And bites it for true heart and not for harm, 
So he with Lilia's. Daintily she shriek'd 
And wrung it. " Doubt my word again !" he said. 
"Come, listen! here is proof that you were miss'd: 
We seven stay'd at Christmas up to read. 
And there we took one tutor as to read : 
The hard-grain'd Muses of the cube and square 
Were out of season : never man, I think, 



So moulder'd in a sinecure as he : 

For while our cloisters echo'd frosty feet. 

And our long walks were stript as bare as brooms, 

We did but talk you over, pledge you all 

In wassail : often, like as many girls — 

Sick for the hollies and the yews of home — 

As many little trifling Lilias — play'd 

Charades and riddles as at Christmas here. 

And whaVs my thought and when and where and how, 

And often told a tale from mouth to mouth 

As here at Christmas." 

She remember'd that: 
A pleasant game, she thought : she liked it more 
Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest. 
But these— what kind of tales did men tell men. 
She wonder'd, by themselves? 

A half-disdain 
Perch'd on the pouted blossom of her lips : 
And Walter nodded at me ; " He began. 
The rest would follow, each in turn ; and so 
We forged a sevenfold story. Kind ? what kind ? 
Chimeras, crotchets, Christmas solecisms, 
Seven-headed monsters only made to kill 
Time by the fire in winter." 

" Kill him now, 
The tyrant ! kill him in the summer too," 
Said Lilia ; "Why not now," the maiden Aunt. 
" Why not a summer's as a winter's tale ? 
A tale for summer as befits the time, 
And something it should be to suit the place. 
Heroic, for a hero lies beneath. 
Grave, solemn !" 

Walter warp'd his mouth at this 
To something so mock-solemn, that I laugh'd 
And Lilia woke with sudden-shrilling mirth 
An echo like a ghostly woodpecker, 
Hid in the ruins ; till the maiden Aunt 
(A little sense of wrong had touch'd her face 
With color) turn'd to me with " As you will ; 
Heroic if you will, or what you will, 
Or be yourself your hero if you will." 

"Take Lilia, then, for heroine," clamor'd he, 
" And make her some great Princess, sis feet high, 
Grand, epic, homicidal ; and be you 
The Prince to win her 1" 

"Then follow me, the Prince,'' 
I answer'd, " each be hero in his turn ! 
Seven and yet one, like shadows in a dream. — 
Heroic seems our Princess as required. — 
But something made to suit with Time and place, 
A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house, 
A talk of college and of ladies' rights, 
A feudal knight in silken masquerade, 
And, yonder, shrieks and strange experiments 
For which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them all— 
This were a medley ! we should have him back 
Who told the ' Winter's tale ' to do it for us. 
No matter : we will say whatever comes. 
And let the ladies sing us, if they will. 
From time to time, some ballad or a song 
To give us breathing-space." 

So I began. 
And the rest follow'd : and the women sang 
Between the rougher voices of the men. 
Like linnets in the pauses of the wind : 
And here I give the story and the songs. 

I. 

A Prinoe I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face, 
Of temper amorous, as the first of May, 
With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl. 
For on my cradle shone the Northern star. 

There livpd an ancieut legend in our house. 
Some sorcerer, whom a far-off grandsire burnt 
Because he cast no shadow, had foretold. 
Dying, that none of all our blood should know 



81 



THE PRINCESS : A MEDLEY. 



The shadow from the substance, aud that one 

Should come to tight with shadows aud to fall. 

For 60, my mother said, the story ran. 

And, truly, wakiug dreams were, more or less, 

An old and strange affection of the house. 

Myself too had weird seizures. Heaven knows what: 

Ou a sudden in the midst of men and day. 

And while I walk'd aud talk'd as heretofore, 

I seem'd to move among a world of ghosts. 

And feel myself the shadow of a dream. 

Our great court-Galen poised his gilt-head cane, 

Aud paw'd his beard, aud mutter'd " catalepsj'." 

My mother pitying made a thousand prayers; 

My mother was as mild as any saint, 

Half-canonized by all that look'd ou her, 

So gracious was her tact aud tenderness ; 

But my good father thought a king a king; 

He cared not for the affection of the house ; 

He held his sceptre like a pedant's wand 

To lash offence, and with long arms and hands 

Reach'd out, and pick'd offenders from the mass 

For judgment. 

Now it chanced that I had been, 
While life was yet in bud and blade, betroth'd 
To one, a neighboring Princess : she to me 
Was proxy-wedded with a bootless calf 
At eight years old ; and still from time to time 
Came murmurs of her beauty from the South, 
And of her brethren, youths of puissance ; 
And still I wore her picture by my heart. 
And one dark tress ; and all aj-ound them both 
Sweet thoughts would swarm as bees about their 
queen. 

But when the days drew nigh that I should wed, 
My father sent ambassadors with furs 
And jewels, gifts, to fetch her : these brought back 
A present, a great labor of the loom ; 
And therewithal an answer vague as wind : 
Besides, they saw the king ; he took the gifts ; 
He said there was a compact; that was true: 
But then she had a will ; was he to blame ? 
And maiden fancies ; loved to live alone 
Among her women ; certain, would not wed. 

That morning in the presence-room I stood 
With Cyril and with Florian, my two friends: 
The first, a gentleman of broken means 
(His father's fault) but given to starts and bursts 
Of revel ; and the last, my other heart, 
And almost my half-self, for still we moved 
Together, twinn'd as horse's ear aud eye. 

Now, while they spake, I saw my father's face 
Grow long aud troubled like a rising moon, 
Inflamed with wrath : he started ou his feet, 
Tore the king's letter, snow'd it down, and rent 
The wonder of the loom thro' warp and woof 
From skirt to skirt ; aud at the last he sware 
That he would send a hundred thousand men, 
And bring her in a whirlwind : then he chew'd 
The thrice-turn'd cud of wrath, and cook'd his spleen. 
Communing with his captains of the war. 

At last I spoke. "My father, let me go. 
It cannot be but some gross error lies 
In this report, this answer of a king. 
Whom all men rate as kind and hospitable : 
Or, maybe, I myself, my bride once seen, 
Whate'er ray grief to find her less than fame. 
May rue the bargain made." And Florian said : 
" I have a sister at the foreign court, 
Wlio moves about the Princess ; she, you know. 
Who wedded with a nobleman from thence: 
He, dying lately, left her, as I hear. 
The lady of three castles in that land : 
Thro' her this matter might be sifted clean." 
And Cyril whisper'd : " Take me with you too." 



Then laughing "what, if these weird seizures come 
Upon you in those lauds, and no one near 
To point you out the shadow from the truth ! 
Take me : I'll serve you better in a strait ; 
I grate on rusty hinges here:" but "No!" 
Roar'd the rough king, "you shall not; we ourself 
Will crush her pretty maiden fancies dead 
In iron gauntlets: break the council up." 

But when the council broke, I rose and past 
Thro' the wild woods thOT hung about the town ; 
Found a still place, and pluck'd her likeness out; 
Laid it on flowers, aud watch'd it lying bathed 
In the green gleam of dewy-tassell'd trees : 
What were those fancies ? wherefore break her troth ? 
Proud look'd the lips : but while I meditated 
A wind arose and rush'd upon the South, 
And shook the songs, the whispers, and the shrieks 
Of the wild woods together ; and a Voice 
Went with it, "Follow, follow, thou shalt win." 

Then, ere the silver sickle of that month 
Became her golden shield, I stole from court 
With Cyril and with Florian, unperceived. 
Cat-footed thro' the town and half in dread 
To hear my father's clamor at our backs 
With Ho ! from some bay-window shake the night ; 
But all was quiet : from the bastion'd walls 
Like threaded spiders, one by one, we dropt, 
And flying reach'd the frontier : then we crost 
To a livelier land ; and so by tilth and grange. 
And vines, and blowing bosks of wilderness. 
We gaiu'd the mother-city thick with towers, 
And in the imperial palace found the king. 

His name was Gama ; crack'd and small his voice, 
But bland the smile that like a wrinkling wind 
On glassy water drove his cheek in lines ; 
A little dry old man, without a star. 
Not like a king: three days he feasted us. 
And on the fourth I spake of why we came. 
And my betroth'd. " You do us. Prince," he said, 
Airing a snowy hand and signet gem, 
"All honor. We remember love ourselves 
In our sweet youth : there did a compact pass 
Long summers back, a kind of ceremony — 
I think the year in which our olives fail'd. 
I would you had her, Prince, with all my heart. 
With my full heart: but there were widows here, 
Two widows. Lady Psyche, Lady Blanche ; • 

They fed her theories, in and out of place 
Maintaining that with equal husbandry 
The woman were an equal to the man. 
They harp'd on this; with this our banquets rang; 
Our dances broke and buzz'd in knots of talk ; 
Nothing but this ; my very ears were hot 
To hear them: knowledge, so my daughter held, 
Was all in all ; they had but been, she thought. 
As children ; they must lose the child, assume 
The woman: then, Sir, awful odes she wrote, 
Too awful, sure, for what they treated of. 
But all she is and does is awful; odes 
About this losing of the child ; aud rhymes 
And dismal lyrics, prophesying change 
Beyond all reason : these the women sang ; 
And they that know such things— I sought but peace ; 
No critic I— would call them masterpieces ; 
They raaster'd me. At last she begg'd a boon 
A certain summer-palace which I have 
Hard by your father's frontier: I said no. 
Yet being an easy man, gave it ; and there, 
All wild to found an University 
For maidens, on the spur she fled ; and more 
We know not,— only this : they see no men, 
Not ev'n her brother Arac, nor the twins 
Her brethren, tho' they love her, look upon her 
As on a kind of paragon ; and I 
(Pardon me saying it) were much loath to breed 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 



Dispute betwixt myself and mine: but. since 
(And I confess with right) yoix think me bound 
In some sort, I can give you letters to her ; 
And, yet, to speali the truth, I rate your chance 
Almost at naked nothing." 

Thus the king; 
And I, tho' nettled that he seem'd to slur 
With garrulous ease and oily courtesies 
Our formal compact, yet, not less (all frets 
But chaflng me on fire to find my bride) 
Went forth again with both my friends. We rode 
Many a long league back to the North. At last 
From hills, that look'd across a land of hope, 
We dropt with evening on a rustic town 
Set in a gleaming river's crescent-curve, 
Close at the boundary of the liberties ; 
There euter'd an old hostel, call'd mine host 
To council, plied him with his richest wines. 
And show'd the late-writ letters of the king. 

He with a long low sibilation, stared 
As blank as death in marble ; then exclaim'd 
Averring it was clear against all rules 
For any man to go: but as his brain 
Began to mellow, " If the king," he said, 
" Had given us letters, was he bound to speak ? 
The king would bear him out ;" and at the last— 
The summer of the vine in all his veins — 
"No doubt that we might make it worth his while. 
She once had past that way; he heard her speak; 
She scared him ; life ! he never saw the like ; 
She look'd as grand as doomsday and as grave: 
And he, he reverenced his liege-lady there ; 
He always made a point to post with mares ; 
His daughter and his housemaid were the boy.s: 
The land he understood for miles about 
Was till'd by women ; all the swine were sows. 
And all the dogs — " 

But while he jested thus 
A thought flash'd thro' me which I cloth'd in act, 
Remembering how we three presented Maid 
Or Nymph, or Goddess, at high tide of feast, 
In masque or pageaut at my father's court. 
We sent mine host to purchase female gear; 
He brought it, and himself, a sight to shake 
The midriff of despair with laughter, holp 
To lace us up, till each, in maiden plumes 
We rustled: him we gave a costly bribe 
To guerdon silence, mounted our good steeds. 
And boldly ventured on the liberties. 

We follow'd up the river as we rode. 
And rode till midnight when the college lights 
Began to glitter firefly-like in copse 
And linden alley: then we past an arch. 
Whereon a woman-statue rose with wings 
From four wing'd horses dark against the stars ; 
And some inscription ran along the front, 
Bat deep in shadow : further on we gain'd 
A little street half garden and half house ; 
But scarce could hear each other speak for noise 
Of clocks and chimes, like silver hammers falling 
On silver anvils, and the splash and stir 
Of fountains spouted up and showering down 
In meshes of the jasmine and the rose : 
And all about us peal'd the nightingale. 
Rapt in her song, and careless of the snare. 

There stood a bust of Pallas for a sign. 
By two sphere lamps blazon'd like Heaven and 

Earth 
With constellation and with continent. 
Above an entry : riding in, we call'd ; 
A plump-arm'd Ostleress and a stable wench 
Came running at the call, and help'd us down. 
Then stept a buxom hostess forth, and sail'd. 
Full blown, before us into rooms which gave 
Upon a pillar'd porch, the bases lost 



In laurel : her we ask'd of that and this, 

And who were tutors. "Lady Blanche," she said, 

"And Lady Psyche." "Which was prettiest, 

Best-natured ?" "Lady Psyche." "Hers are we," 

One voice, we cried ; and I sat down and wrote, 

In such a hand as when a field of corn 

Bows all its ears before the roaring East: 

"Three ladies of the Northei-n empire pray 
Your Highness would enroll them with your own, 
As Lady Psyche's pupils." 

This I seal'd : 
The seal was Cupid bent above a scroll. 
And o'er his head Uranian Venus hung. 
And raised the blinding bandage from his eyes: 
I gave the letter to be sent with dawn: 
And then to bed, where half in doze I seem'd 
To float about a glimmering night, and watch 
A full sea glazed with muffled moonlight, swell 
On some dark shore just seen that it was rich. 



As thro' the laud at eve we went, 

And pluck'd the ripen'd ears, 
We fell out, my wife and I, 
O we fell out I know not why, 
And kiss'd again with tears. 

For when we came where lies the child 

We lost in other years. 
There above the little grave, 
O there above the little grave, 

We kiss'd again with tears., 

II. 

At break of day the College Portress came : 

She brought us Academic silks, in hue 

The lilac, with a silken hood to each. 

And zoned with gold ; and now when these were on, 

And we as rich as moths from dusk cocoons. 

She, curtseying her obeisance, let us know 

The Princess Ida waited: out we paced, 

I first, and following thro' the porch that sang 

All round with laurel, issued in a court 

Ccjpapact of lucid marbles, boss'd with lengths 

Of classic frieze, with ample awnings gay 

Betwixt the pillars, and with great urns of flowers. 

The Muses and the Graces, group'd in threes, 

Enriug'd a billowing fountain in the midst; 

And here and there on lattice edges lay 

Or book or lute; but hastily we past, 

And up a flight of stairs into the hall. 

There at a board by tome and paper sat. 
With two tame leopards couch'd beside her throne. 
All beauty compassd in a female form. 
The Princess; liker to the inhabitant 
Of some clear planet close upon the Sun, 
Than our man's earth ; such eyes were in her head. 
And so much grace and power, breathing down 
Prom over her arch'd brows, with every turn 
Lived thro' her to the tips of her long hands. 
And to her feet. She rose her height, and said : 

"We give you welcome: not without redound 
Of use and glory to yourselves ye come, 
The first-fruits of the stranger : aftertime, 
And that full voice which circles round the grave, 
Will rank you nobly, mingled up with me. 
What ! are the ladies of your land so tall ?" 
"We of the court," said Cyril. "From the court,'" 
She answer'd, "then ye know the Prince?" and he: 
"The climax of his age ! as tho' there were 
One rose in all the world, your Highness that, 
He worships your ideal." She replied: 
" We scarcely thought in our own hall to hear 
This barren verbiage, current among men. 
Like coin, the tinsel clink of compliment. 
Yoar flight from out your bookless wilds would seem 
As arguing love of knowledge and of power; 



86 



THE PRINCESS : A MEDLEY. 



Your language proves you still the child. Indeed, 
We dream not of him : when we set our hand 
To this great work, we purposed with ourself 
Never to wed. You likewise will do well, 
Ladies, in entering here, to cast and fling 
The tricks, which make us toys of men, that so, 
Some future time, if so indeed you will, 
You may with those self-styled our lords ally 
Your fortunes, justlier balanced, scale with scale." 

At those high words, we, conscious of ourselves. 
Perused the matting; then an oiBcer 
Eose up, and read the statutes, such as these: 
Not for three years to correspond with home; 
Not for three years to cross the liberties: 
Not for three years to speak with any men; 
And many more, which hastily subscribed, 
We enter'd on the boards: and "Now," she cried, 
"Ye are green wood, see ye warp not. Look, our 

hall! 
Our statues !— not of those that men desire. 
Sleek Odalisques, or oracles of mode. 
Nor stunted squaws of West or East ; but she 
That taught the Sabine how to rule, and she 
The foundress of the Babylonian wall. 
The Carian Artemisia strong in war. 
The Rhodope, that built the pyramid, 
Clelia, Cornelia, with the Palmyrene 
That fought Aurelian, and the Roman brows 
Of Agrippina. Dwell with these and lose 
Convention, since to look on noble forms 
Makes noble thro' the sensuous organism 
That which is higher. O lift your natures up : 
Embrace our aims: work out your freedom. Girls, 
Knowledge is now no more a fountain seal'd: 
Drink deep, until the habits of the slave. 
The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite 
And slander, die. Better not be at all 
Than not be noble. Leave us: you may go: 
To-day the Lady Psyche will harangue 
The fresh arrivals of the week before; 
For they press in from all the provinces. 
And fill the hive." 

She spoke, and bowing waved 
Dismissal: back again we crost the court 
To Lady Psyche's: as we enter'd in, 
There sat along the forms, like morning doves 
That sun their milky bosoms on the thatch, 
A patient range of pupils ; she herself 
Erect behind a desk of satin-wood, 
A quick brunette, well-moulded, falcon-eyed, 
And on the hither side, or so she look'd. 
Of twenty summers. At her left, a child, 
In shining draperies, headed like a star, 
Her maiden babe, a double April old, 
Aglaia slept. We sat: the Lady glanced: 
Then Florian, but no livelier than the dame 
That whisper'd " Asses' ears " among the sedge, 
" My sister." " Comely too by all that's fair," 
Said Cyril. " O hush, hush !" and she began. 

" This world was once a fluid haze of light, 
Till toward the centre set the starry tides, 
And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast 
The planets : then the monster, then the man ; 
Tattoo'd or woaded, winter-clad in skins. 
Raw from the prime, and crushing down his mate ; 
As yet we find in barbarous isles, and here 
Among the lowest." 

Thereupon she took 
A bird's-eye view of all the. ungracious past; 
Glanced at the legendary Amazon 
As emblematic of a nobler age ; 
Appraised the Lycian custom, spoke of those 
That lay at wine with Lar and Lucumo ; 
Ran doira the Persian, Grecian, Roman lines 
Of empire, and the woman's state in each. 
How far from just ; till, warming with her theme, 



She fulmined out her scorn of laws Salique 

And little-footed China, touch'd on Mahomet 

With much contempt, and came to chivalry : 

When some respect, however slight, was paid 

To woman, superstition all awry: 

However then commenced the dawn: a beam 

Had slanted forward, falling in a land 

Of promise ; fruit would follow. Deep, indeed. 

Their debt of thanks to her who first had dared 

To leap the rotten pales of prejudice, 

Disyoke their necks from custom, and assert 

None lordlier than themselves but that which made 

Woman and man. She had founded ; they must build. 

Here might they learn whatever men were taught: 

Let them not fear : some said their heads were less : 

Some men's were small ; not they the least of men ; 

For often fineness compensated size: 

Besides the brain was like the hand, and grew 

With using ; thence the man's, if more, was more ; 

He took advantage of his strength to be 

First in the field: some ages had been lost; 

But woman ripen'd earlier, and her life 

Was longer; and albeit their glorious names 

Were fewer, scatter'd stars, yet since in truth 

The highest is the measure of the man. 

And not the Kaffir, Hottentot, Malay, 

Nor those horn-handed breakers of the glebe, 

But Homer, Plato, Verulam ; even so 

With woman : and in arts of government 

Elizabeth and others ; arts of war 

The peasant Joan and others ; arts of grace 

Sappho and others vied with any man : 

And, last not least, she who had left her place. 

And bow'd her state to them, that they might grow 

To use and power on this Oasis, lapt 

In the arms of leisure, sacred from the blight 

Of ancient influence and scorn." 

At last 
She rose upon a wind of prophecy 
Dilating on the future; "everywhere 
Two heads in council, two beside the hearth. 
Two in the tangled business of the world. 
Two in the liberal offices of life. 
Two plummets dropt for one to sound the abyss 
Of science, and the secrets of the mind : 
Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more : 
And everywhere the broad and bounteous Earth 
Should bear a double growth of those rare souls, 
Poets, whose thoughts enrich the blood of the work!." 

She ended here, and beckon'd us: the rest 
Parted ; and, glowing full-faced welcome, she 
Began to address us, and was moving on 
In gratulation, till as when a boat 
Tacks, and the slacken'd sail flaps, all her voice 
Faltering and fluttering in her throat, she cried, 
"My brother !" " Well, my sister." "O," she said, 
"What do you here? and in this dress? and these? 
Why who are these ? a wolf within the fold ! 
A pack of wolves ! the Lord be gracious to me ! 
A plot, a plot, a plot to ruin all !" 
"No plot, no plot," he answer'd. "Wretched boy. 
How saw you not the inscription on the gate, 
Let no man enter in on pain or death ?" 
"And if I had," he answer'd, "who could think 
The softer Adams of your Academe, 
O sister, Sirens tho' they be, were such 
As chanted on the blanching bones of men ?" 
" But you will find it otherwise," she said. 
"You jest: ill jesting with edge-tools! my vow 
Binds me to speak, and O that iron will. 
That axelike edge unturnable, our Head, 
The Princess." "Well then. Psyche, take my life, 
And nail me like a weasel on a grange 
For warning: bury me beside the gate. 
And cut this epitaph above my bones; 
Here lies a brother by a sister slain, 
All for the common good of womankind." 



THE PRINCESS : A MEDLEY. 



87 



"Let me die too," said Cyril, "having seen 
And heard the Lady Psyche." 

I struck in : 
" Albeit so mask'd. Madam, I love the truth ; 
Receive it ; and in me behold the Prince 
Your countryman, affianced years ago 
To the Lady Ida : here, for here she was, 
And thus (what other way was left?) I came." 
"O Sir, O Prince, I have uo country; none ; 
If any, this; but uone. Whate'er I was 
Disrooted, what I am is grafted here. 
Affianced, Sir ? love-whispers may not breathe 
Within this vestal limit, and how should I, 
Who am not mine, say, live : the thunderbolt 
Hangs silent; but prepare: I speak; it falls." 
"Yet pause," I said: "for that inscription there, 
I think no more of deadly lurks therein, 
Thau in a clapper clapping in a garth. 
To scare the fowl from fruit : if more there be. 
If more and acted on, what follows ? war ; 
Your own work marr'd: for this your Academe, 
Whichever side be Victor, in the halloo 
Will topple to the trumpet down, and pass 
With all fair theories only made to gild 
A stormless summer." "Let the Princess judge 
Of that," she said: "farewell, Sir— and to you. 
I shudder at the sequel, but I go." 

"Are you that Lady Psyche," I rejoin'd, 
"The fifth in line from that old Ploriau, 
Yet hangs his portrait in my father's hall 
(The gaunt old Baron with his beetle brow 
Sun-shaded in the heat of dusty fights) 
As he bestrode my Grandsire, when he fell. 
And all else fled: we point to it, and we say, 
The loyal warmth of Florian is not cold. 
But branches cm-reut yet in kindred veins." 
"Are you that Psyche," Florian added, "she 
With whom I sang about the morning hills. 
Flung ball, flew kite, and raced the purple fly. 
And snared the squirrel of the glen ? are you 
That Psyche, wont to bind my throbbing brow. 
To smooth my pillow, mix the foaming draught 
Of fever, tell me pleasant tales, and read 
My sickness down to happy dreams? are you 
That brother-sister Psyche, both in one ? 
You were that Psyche, but what are you now?" 
"You are that Psyche," Cyril said, "for whom 
I would be that forever which I seem. 
Woman, if I might sit beside your feet. 
And glean your scatter'd sapience." 

Then once more, 
"Are you that Lady Psycli^," I began, 
"That on her bridal morn before she past 
From all her old companions, when the king 
Kiss'd her pale cheek, declared that ancient ties 
Would still be dear beyond the southern hills ; 
That were there any of our people there 
In want or peril, there was one to hear 
And help them:, look! for such are these and I." 
"Are you that Psyche," Florian ask'd, "to whom, 
la gentler days, your arrow-wounded fawn 
Came flying while you sat beside the well? 
The creature laid his muzzle on your lap, 
And sobb'd, and you sobb'd with it, and the blood 
Was sprinkled on your kirtle, and you wept. 
That was fawn's blood, not brother's, yet you wept. 
O by the bright head of my, little niece. 
You were that Psyche, and what are you now?" 
"You are that Psyche," Cyril said again, 
"The mother of the sweetest little maid, 
That ever crow'd for kisses." 

"Out upon it!" 
She answer'd, " peace 1 and why should I not play 
The Spartan Mother with emotion, be 
The Lucius Junius Brutus of my kind? 
Ilini you call great: he for the common weal. 
The fading politics of mortal Eome, 



As I might slay this child, if good need were, 

Slew both his sons: and I, shall I, on whom 

The secular emancipation turns 

Of half this world, be swerved from right to save 

A prince, a brother ? a little vdll I yield. 

Best so, perchance, for us, and well for you. 

hard, when love and duty clash ! I fear 

My conscience will not count me fleckless ; yet — 

Hear my conditions: promise (otherwise 

You perish) as you came to slip away. 

To-day, to-morrow, soon : it shall be said. 

These women are too barbarous, would not learn ; 

They fled, who might have shamed us : promise, all." 

What could we else, we promised each ; and she, 
Like some wild creature newly caged, commenced 
A to-and-fro, so pacing till she paused 
By Florian; holding out her lily arms 
Took both his hands, and smiling faintly said : 
"I knew you at the first; tho' you have grown 
You scarce have alter'd: I am sad and glad 
To see you, Florian. / give thee to death, 
My brother ! it was duty spoke, not I. 
My needful seeming harshness, pardon it. 
Our mother, is she well?" 

With that she kiss'd 
His forehead, then, a moment after, clung 
About him, and betwixt them blossom'd up 
From out a common vein of memory 
Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth, 
And far allusion, till the gracious dews 
Began to glisten and to fall: and while 
They stood, so rapt, we gazing, came a voice, • 
"I brought a message here from Lady Blanche." 
Back started she, and turning round we saw 
The Lady Blanche's daughter ^Skere she stood, 
Melissa, with her hand upon the lock. 
A rosy blonde, and in a coilege gown. 
That clad her like an April daffodilly 
(Her mother's color) with her lips apart. 
And all her thoughts as fair within her eyes, 
As bottom agates seen to wave and float 
In crystal currents of clear morning seas. 

So stood that same fair creature at the door. 
Then Lady Psyche, " Ah— Melissa— you ! 
You heard us?" and Melissa, "O pardon me! 

1 heard, I could not help it, did not wish : 
But, dearest Lady, pray you fear me not. 

Nor think I bear that heart within my breast, 
To give three gallant gentlemen to death." 
"I trust you," said the other, "for we two 
Were always friends, none closer, elm and vine : 
But yet your mother's jealous temperament- 
Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or prove 
The Danaid of a leaky vase, for fear 
This whole foundation ruin, and I lose 
My honor, these their lives." " Ah, fear me not," 
Eeplied Melissa; "no— I would not tell, 
No, not for all Aspasia's cleverness. 
No, not to answer. Madam, all those hard things 
That Sheba came to ask of Solomon." 
" Be it so," the other, " that we still may lead 
The new light up, and culminate in peace, 
For Solomon may come to Sheba yet." 
Said Cyril, " Madam, he the wisest man 
Feasted the woman wisest then, in halls 
Of Lebanonian cedar: nor should you 
(Tho' Madam you should answer, we would ask) 
Less welcome find among us, if you came 
Among us, debtors for our lives to you. 
Myself for something more." He said not what. 
But "Thanks," she answer'd, "go: we have been 

too long 
Together: keep your hoods about the face; 
They do so that afl'ect abstraction here. 
Speak little ; mix not with the rest; and hold 
Yoirr promise : all, I trust, may yet be well." 



THE PRINCESS : A MEDLEY, 



We turn'd to go, but Cyril took the child, 
And held her round the knees against his waist. 
And blew the swoU'n cheek of a tnmipeter, 
While Psyche watch'd them, smiling, and the child 
Push'd her flat hand against his face and laugh'd ; 
And thus our conference closed. 

And then we strolled 
For half the day thro' stately theatres 
Bench'd crescent-wise. In each we sat, we heard 
The grave Professor. On the lecture slate 
The circle rounded under female hands 
With flawless demonstration: follow'd then 
A classic lecture, rich in sentiment, 
With scraps of thunderous Epic lilted out 
By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies 
And quoted odes, and jewels flve-words-long 
That on the stretch'd forefinger of all Time 
Sparkle forever : then we dipt in all 
That treats of whatsoever is, the state, 
The total chronicles of man, the mind. 
The morals, something of the frame, the rock, 
The star, the bird, the fish, the shell, the flower. 
Electric, chemic laws, and all the rest. 
And whatsoever can be taught and known ; 
Till like three horses that have broken fence. 
And glutted all night long breast-deep in corn. 
We issued gorged with knowledge, and I spoke : 
"Why, Sirs, they do all this as well as we." 
"They hunt old trails," said Cyril, "very well; 
But when did woman ever yet invent ?" 
"Ungracious!" auswer'd Florian, "have you learut 
No more from Psyche's lecture, you that talk'd 
The trash that made me sick, and almost sad ?" 
"O trash," he said, "but with a kernel in it. 
Should I not call her wise, who made me wise ? 
And learnt ? I learifi' more from her in a flash, 
Than if my brainpan were an empty hull. 
And every Muse tumble* a science in. 
A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls. 
And round these halls a thousand baby loves 
Ply twanging headless arrows at the hearts, 
Whence follows many a vacant pang : but O 
With me. Sir, enter'd in the bigger boy. 
The Head of all the golden-shafted firm, 
The long-limb'd lad that had a Psyche too ; 
He cleft me thro' the stomacher ; and now 
What think you of it, Florian ? do I chase 
The substance or the shadow ? will it hold ? 
I have no sorcerer's malison on me, 
No ghostly hauntings like his Highness. I 
Flatter myself that always everywhere 
I know the substance when I see it. Well, 
Are castles shadows ? Three of them ? Is she 
The sweet proprietress a shadow ? If not. 
Shall those three castles patch my tatter'd coat? 
For dear are those three castles to my wants. 
And dear is sister Psyche to ray heart. 
And two dear things are one of double worth, 
And much I might have said, but that my zone 
TJnmann'd me : then the Doctors ! O to hear 
The Doctors ! O to watch the thirsty plants 
Imbibing ! once or twice I thought to roar, 
To break my chain, to shake my mane: but thou, 
Modulate me. Soul of mincing. mimicry ! 
Make liquid treble of that bassoon, my throat ; 
Abase those eyes that ever loved to meet 
Star-sisters answering under crescent brows ; 
Abate the stride, which speaks of man, and loose 
A flying charm of blushes o'er this cheek. 
Where they like swallows coming out of time 
Will wonder why they came ; but hark the bell 
For dinner, let us go 1" 

And in we stream'd 
Among the columns, pacing staid and still 
By twos and threes, till all from end to end 
With beauties every shade of brown and fair, 
In colors gayer than the morning mist, 
The long hall glitter'd like a bed of flowers. 



How might a man not wander from his wits 
Pierced thro' with eyes, but that I kept mine own 
Intent on her, who rapt in glorious dreams. 
The second-sight of some Astnean age, 
Sat compass'd with professors: they, the while, 
Discuss'd a doubt and tost it to and fro: 
A clamor thicken' d, mixt vnth inmost terms 
Of art and science : Lady Blanche alone 
Of faded form and haughtiest lineaments. 
With all her Autumn tresses falsely brown, 
Shot sidelong daggers at us, a tiger-cat 
In act to spring. 

At last a solemn grace 
Concluded, and we sought the gardens: there 
One walk'd reciting by herself, and one 
In this hand held a volume as to read, 
And smoothed a petted peacock down with that : 
Some to a low song oar'd a shallop by, 
Or under arches of the marble bridge 
Hung, shadow'd from the heat : some hid and sought 
In the orange thickets: others tost a ball 
Above the fountain-jets, and back again 
With laughter : others lay about the lawns, 
Of the older sort, and murmur'd that their May 
Was passing: what was learning unto them? 
They wish'd to marry ; they could rule a house ; 
Men hated learned women : but we three 
Sat muffled like the Fates ; and often came 
Melissa hitting all we saw with shafts 
Of gentle satire, kin to charity. 
That harm'd not : then day droopt ; the chapel bells 
Call'd us : we left the walks ; we mist with those 
Six hundred maidens clad in purest white. 
Before two streams of light from wall to wall. 
While the great organ almost burst his pipes. 
Groaning for power, and rolling thro' the court 
A long melodious thunder to the sound 
Of solemn psalms, and silver litanies. 
The work of Ida, to call down from Heaven 
A blessing on her labors for the world. 



Sweet and low, sweet and low, 

Wind of the western sea. 
Low, low, breathe and blow. 

Wind of the western sea ! 
Over the rolling waters go. 
Come from the dying moon, and blow. 

Blow him again to me ; 
While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. 

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest. 

Father will come to thee soon ; 
Rest, rest, on mother's breast. 

Father will come to thee soon ; 
Father will come to his babe in the nest. 
Silver sails all out of the west 

Under the silver moon: 
Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. 

III. 

MoKN in the white wake of the morning star 
Came furrowing all the orient into gold. 
We rose, and each by other drest with care 
Descended to the court that lay three parts 
In shadow, but the Muses' heads were touch'd 
Above the darkness from their native East. 

There while we stood beside the fount, and watch'd 
Or seem'd to watch the dancing bubble, approach'd 
Melissa, tinged with wan from lack of sleep. 
Or grief, and glowing round her dewy eyes 
The circled Iris of a night of tears ; 
"And fly," she cried, "O fly, while yet yon may! 
My mother knows:" and wken I ask'd her "how," 
" My fault," she wept, " my fault ! and yet not mine ; 
Yet mine in part. O hear me, pardon me. 
My mother, 't ia her wont from night to night 



THE PRINCESS : A MEDLEY. 



89 



To rail at Lady Psyche and her side. 

She says the Princess should have been the Head, 

Herself and Lady Psyche the two arms ; 

And so it was agreed when first they came ; 

But Lady Psyche was the right hand now, 

And she the left, or not, or seldom used ; 

Hers more than half the students, all the love. 

And so last night she fell to canvass you : 

' Her countrywomen ! she did not envy her. 

Who ever saw such wild barbarians? 

Girls ? — more like men !' and at these words the 

snake, 
My secret, seera'd to stir within my breast ; 
And O, Sirs, could I help it, but my cheek 
Began to burn and burn, and her lynx eye 
■ To fix and make me hotter, till she laugh 'd : 
' O marvellously modest maiden, you ! 
Men ! girls, like men ! why, if they had been men 
You need not set your thoughts in rubric thus 
For wholesale comment.' Pardon, I am shamed 
That I must needs repeat for my excuse 
What looks so little graceful : ' men ' (for still 
My mother went revolving on the word) 
'And so they are, — very like men indeed — 
And with that woman closeted for hours !' 
'Why — these— are — men:' Ishudder'd: 'and you 

know it.' 
Then came these dreadful words out one by one, 
'O ask me nothing,'! said: 'And she knows too. 
And she conceals it.' So my mother clutch'd 
The truth at once, but with no word from me ; 
And now thus early risen she goes to inform 
The Princess : Lady Psyche will be crnsh'd ; 
But you may yet be saved, and therefore fly: 
But heal me with your pardon ere your go." 

" What pardon, sweet Melissa, for a blush ?" 
Said Cyril : " Pale one, blush again : than wear 
Those lilies, better blush our lives away. 
Yet let us breathe for one hour more in Heaven," 
He added, "lest some classic Angel speak 
In scorn of us, ' they mounted, Ganymedes, 
To tumble, Vulcans, on the second morn.' 
But I will melt this marble into wax 
To yield us farther furlough:" and he went. 

Melissa shook her doubtful curls, and thought 
He scarce would prosper. "Tell us," Florian ask'd, 
"How grew this feud betwixt the right and left." 
"Olong ago," she said, "betwixt these two 
Division smoulders hidden : 't is my mother, 
Too jealous, often fitful as the wind 
Pent in a crevice : much I bear with her : 
I never knew my father, but she says 
<God help her) she was wedded to a fool ; 
And still she rail'd against the state of things. 
She had the care of Lady Ida's youth, 
And from the Queen's decease she brought her up. 
But when your sister came she won the heart 
Of Ida : they were still together, grew 
(For so they said themselves) inosculated ; 
Consonant chords that shiver to one note : 
One mind in all things : yet my mother still 
Aflirms your Psyche thieved her theories, 
And angled with them for her pupil's love : 
She calls her plagiarist ; I know not what : 
But I must go : I dare not tarry," and light, 
As flies the shadow of a bird, she fled. 

Then murmur'd Florian, gazing after her: 
"An open-hearted maiden, true and pure. 
If I could love, why this were she : how pretty 
Her blushing was, and how she blush'd again, 
As if to close with Cyril's random wish : 
Not like your Princess cramm'd with erring pride, 
Nor like poor Psyche whom she drags in tow." 

"The crane," I said, "may chatter of the crane, 
The dove may murmur of the dove, but I 



An eagle clang an eagle to the sphere. 

My princess, O my princess I true she errs. 

But in her own grand way; being herself 

Three times more noble than three-score of men, 

She sees herself in every woman else. 

And so she wears her error like a crown 

To blind the truth and me : for her, and her, 

Hebes are they to hand ambrosia, mix 

The nectar ; but — ah she — whene'er she moves 

The Samian Here rises and she speaks 

A Memuou smitten with the morning Sun." 

So saying, from the court we paced, and gain'd 
The terrace ranged along the Northern front, 
And leaning there on those balusters, high 
Above the empurpled champaign, drank the gale 
That blown about the foliage underneath. 
And sated with the innumerable rose. 
Beat balm upon our eyelids. Hither came 
Cyril, and yawning "O hard task," he cried: 
"No fighting shadows here ! I forced a way 
Thro' solid opposition crabb'd and gnarl'd. 
Better to clear prime forests, heave and thump 
A league of street in summer solstice down, 
Than hammer at this reverend gentlewoman. 
I knock'd and, bidden, euter'd ; found her there 
At point to move, and settled in her eyes 
The green malignant light of coming storm. 
Sir, I was courteous, every phrase well-oil'd. 
As man's could be ; yet maiden-meek I pray'd 
Concealment : she demanded who we were. 
And why we came 1 I fabled nothing fair. 
But, your example pilot, told her all. 
Up went the hush'd amaze of hand and eye. 
But when I dwelt upon your old affiance. 
She answer'd sharply that I talk'd astray. 
I urged the fierce inscription on the gate, 
And our three lives. True— we had limed ourselves, 
With open eyes, and we must take the chance. 
But such extremes, I told her, well might harm 
The woman's cause. ' Not more than now,' she 

said, 
'So puddled as it is with favoritism.' 
I tried the mother's heart. Shame might befall 
Melissa, knowing, saying not she knew : 
Her answer was, 'Leave me to deal with that.' 
I spoke of war to come and many deaths, 
And she replied, her duty was to speak. 
And duty duty, clear of consequences. 
I grew discouraged. Sir, but since I knew 
No rock so hard but that a little wave 
May beat admission in a thousand years, 
I recommenced: 'Decide not ere you pause. 
I find you here but in the second place, 
Some say the third — the authentic foundress you. 
[ offer boldly : we will seat you highest : 
Wink at our advent: help my prince to gain 
His rightful bride, and here I promise you 
Some palace in our land, where you shall reign 
The head and heart of all our fair she-world. 
And your great name flow on with broadening time 
Forever.' Well, she balanced this a little. 
And told me she would answer us to-day. 
Meantime be mute: thus much, nor more I gain'd."' 

He ceasing, came a message from the Head. 
"That afternoon the Princess rode to take 
The dip of certain strata to the North. 
Would we go with her ? we should find the laud 
Worth seeing ; and the river made a fall 
Out yonder;" then she pointed on to where 
A double hill ran up his furrowy forks 
Beyond the thick-leaved platans of the vale. 

Agreed to, this, the day fled on thro' all 
Its range of duties to the appointed honr. 
Then summon'd to the porch we went. She stood 
Among her maidens, higher by the head. 



f)0 



THE PKINCESS: A MEDLEY. 



Her back against a pillar, her foot on one 
Of those tame leopards. Kittenlike he roll'd 
And paw'd about her sandal. I drew near : 
I gazed. On a sudden my strange seizure came 
Upon me, the weird vision of our house: 
The Princess Ida seem'd a hollow show, 
Her gay-furr'd cats a painted fantasy. 
Her college and her maidens, empty masks, 
And I myself the shadow of a dream, 
For all things were and were not. Yet I felt 
My heart beat thick with passion and with awe ; 
Then from my breast the involuntary sigh 
Brake, as she smote me with the light of eyes 
That lent my knee desire to kneel, and shook 
My pulses, till to horse we got, and so 
Went forth in long retinue following up 
The river as it narrow'd to the hills. 

I rode beside her and to me she said: 
"O friend, we trust that you esteem'd us not 
Too harsh to your companion yester-morn ; 
Unwillingly we spake." "No— not to her," 
I answer'd, "but to one of whom we spake 
Your Highness might have seem'd the thing you say. " 
"Again?" she cried, "are you ambassadresses 
From him to me ? we give you, being strange, 
A license: speak, and let the topic die." 

I stammer'd that I knew him— could have wish'd— 
"Our king expects — was there no precontract? 
There is no trner-hearted — ah, you seem 
All he prefigured, and he could not see 
The bird of passage flying south but long'd 
To follow : surely, if your Highness keep 
Your purport, you will shock him ev'n to death, 
Or baser courses, chUdreu of despair." 

"Poor boy," she said, "can he not read — no 
books? 
Quoit, tennis, ball — no games ? nor deals in that 
Which men delight in, martial exercise ? 
To nurse a blind ideal like a girl, 
Methinks he seems no better than a girl; 
As girls were once, as we ourself have been ; 
We had our dreams— perhaps he mixt with them : 
We touch on our dead self, nor shun to do it. 
Being other— since we learnt our meaning here, 
To lift the woman's fall'u divinity. 
Upon an even pedestal with man." 

She paused, and added with a haiTghtier smile: 
"And as to precontracts, we move, my friend, 
At no man's beck, but know ourself and thee, 

Vashti, noble Vashti ! Summon'd out 

She kept her state, and left the drunken king 
To brawl at Shushan underneath the palms." 

"Alas your Highness breathes full East," I said, 
"On that which leans to you. I know the Prince, 

1 prize his truth : and then how vast a work 
To assail this gray pre-eminence of man ! 
You grant me license; might I use it? think. 
Ere half be done perchance your life may fail ; 
Then comes the feebler heiress of your plan. 
And takes and ruins all; and thus your pains 
May only make that footprint upon sand 
Which old-recurring waves of prejudice 
Resmooth to nothing : might I dread that you. 
With only Fame for spouse and your great deeds 
For issue, yet may live in vain, and miss. 
Meanwhile, what every woman counts her due. 
Love, children, happiness ?" 

And .she esclaim'd, 
"Peace, you young savage of the Northern wild I 
What ! tho' your Prince's love were like a God's, 
Have we not made ourself the sacrifice? 
You are bold indeed : we are not talk'd to thus : 
Yet will we eay for children, would they grew, 



Like fleld-flowers everywhere ! we like them well : 

But children die ; and let me tell you, girl, 

Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die: 

They with the sun and moon renew their light 

Forever, blessing those that look on them. 

Children — that men may pluck them from our hearts, 

Kill us with pity, break us with ourselves — 

O — children — there is nothing upon earth 

More miserable than she that has a son 

And sees him err : nor would we work for fame ; 

Tho' she perhaps might reap the applause of Great, 

Who learns the one pon sto whence afterhands 

May move the world, tho' she herself eS'ect 

But little : wherefore up and act, nor shrink 

For fear our solid aim be dissipated 

By frail successors. Would, indeed, we had been. 

In lieu of many mortal flies, a race 

Of giants living, each, a thousand years. 

That we might see our own work out, and watch 

The sandy footprint harden into stone." 

I answer'd nothing, doubtful in myself 
If that strange Poet-princess with her grand 
Imaginations might at all be won. 
And she broke out interpreting my thoughts: 

"No doubt we seem a kind of monster to yon; 
We are used to that: for women, up till this 
Cramp'd under worse than South-sea-isle taboo, 
Dwarfs of the gynseceum, fail so far 
In high desire, they know not, cannot guess 
How much their welfare is a passion to us. 
If we could give them surer, quicker proof— 
O if our end were less achievable 
By slow approaches, than by single act 
Of immolation, any phase of death, 
We were as prompt to spring against the pikes. 
Or down the fiery gulf as talk of it. 
To compass our dear sisters' liberties." 

She bow'd as if to veil a noble tear ; 
And up we came to where the river sloped 
To plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks 
A breath of thunder. O'er it shook the woods. 
And danced the color, and, below, stuck out 
The bones of some vast bulk that lived and roar'd 
Before man was. She gazed awhile and said, 
" As these rude bones to us, are we to her 
That will be." "Dare we dream of that," I ask'd, 
" Which wrought us, as the workman and his work, 
That practice betters?" "How," she cried, "you love 
The metaphysics ! read and earn our prize, 
A golden broach: beneath an emerald plane 
Sits Diotima, teaching him that died 
Of hemlock ; our device ; wrought to the life ; 
She rapt upon her subject, he on her : 
For there are schools for all." "And yet," I said, 
"Methinks 1 have not found among them all 
One anatomic." " Nay, we thought of that," 
She answer'd, " but it pleased us not : in truth 
We shudder but to dream our maids should ape 
Those monstrous males that carve the living hound, 
And cram him with the fragments of the grave, 
Or in the dark dissolving human heart. 
And holy secrets of this microcosm, 
Dabbling a shameless hand with shameful jest, 
Encarnalize their spirits : yet we know 
Knowledge is knowledge, and this matter hangs : 
Howbeit ourself, foreseeing casualty, 
Nor willing men should come among us, learnt. 
For many weary moons before we came, 
This craft of healing. Were yon sick, ourself 
Would tend upon you. To your question now. 
Which touches on the workman and his work. 
Let there be light and there was light : 't is so : 
For was, and is, and will be, are but is ; 
And all creation is one act at once. 
The birth of light : but we that are not all, 



THE PRINCESS : A MEDLEY. 



91 



As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that, 
And live, perforce, from thought to thought, and 

make 
One act a phantom of succession : thus 
Our weakness somehow shapes the shadow, Time ; 
But in the shadow will we work, and mould 
The woman to the fuller day." 

She spake 
With kindled eyes: we rode a league beyond. 
And, o'er a bridge of piuewood crossing, came 
On flowery levels underneath the crag, 
Full of all beauty. "O how sweet," I said, 
(For I was half-oblivious of my mask,) 
"To linger here with one that lo\*d us." "Yea," 
She answer'd, " or with fair philosophies 
' That lift the fancy ; for indeed these fields 
Are lovely, lovelier not the Elysiau lawns. 
Where paced the Demigods of old, and saw 
The soft white vapor streak the crowned towers 
Built to the Sun :" then, turning to her maids, 
"Pitch our pavilion here upon the sward; 
Lay out the viands." At the word, they raised 
A tent of satin, elaborately wrought 
With fair Corinna's triumph ; here she stood. 
Engirt with many a florid maideu-cheek. 
The woman-conqueror : woman-conquer'd there 
The bearded Victor of ten-thousand hymns. 
And all the men mourn'd at his side : but we 
Set forth to climb ; then, climbing, Cyril kept 
With Psyche, with Melissa Florian, I 
With mine affianced. Many a little hand 
Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks. 
Many a light foot shone like a jewel set 
In the dark crag : and then we tnrn'd, we wound 
About the cliflfs, the copses, out and in. 
Hammering and clinking, chattering stony names 
Of shale and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff, 
Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the Sun 
Grew broader toward his death and fell, and all 
The rosy heights came out above the lawns. 



The splendor falls on castle walls 

And snowy summits old in story : 
The long light shakes across the lakes 
And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying. 
Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O hark, O hear ! how thin and clear, 
And thinner, clearer, farther going I 
O sweet and far from cliff and scar 
The horns of Etrtand faintly blowing ! 
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying : 
Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O love, they die in yon rich sky, 

They faint on hill or field or river: 
Our echoes roll from soul to soul, 
And grow forever and forever. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying. 
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. 

IV. 

" Thbee sinks the nebulous star we call the Sun, 
If that hypothesis of theirs be sound," 
Said Ida; "let us down and rest:" and we 
Down from the lean and wrinkled precipices. 
By every coppice-feather'd chasm and cleft, 
Dropt thro' the ambrosial gloom to where below 
No bigger than a glow-worm shone the tent 
Lamp-lit from the inner. Once she lean'd on me, 
Descending ; once or twice she lent her hand. 
And blissful palpitations in the blood, 
Stirring a sudden transport rose and fell. 

But when we planted level feet, and dipt 
Beneath the satin dome and enter'd in. 



There leaning deep in broider'd down we sank 
Our elbows : on a tripod in the midst 
A fragrant flame rose, and before us glow'd 
Fruit, blossom, viand, amber wine, and gold. 

Then she, " Let some one sing to us : lightlier 
move 
The minutes fledged with music :" and a maid. 
Of those beside her, smote her harp, and sang. 

"Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean. 
Tears from the depth of some divine despair 
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes. 
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, 
And thinking of the days that are no more. 

" Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, 
That brings our friends up from the underworld, 
Sad as the last which reddens over one 
That sinks with all we love below the verge ; 
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 

" Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds 
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square ; 
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 

"Dear as remember'd kisses after death. 
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd 
On lips that are for others ; deep as love. 
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; 
O Death in Life, the days that are no more." 

She ended with such passion that the tear, 
She sang of, shook and fell, an erring pearl 
Lost in her bosom : but with some disdain 
Answer'd the Princess: "If indeed there haunt 
About the moulder'd lodges of the Past 
So sweet a voice and vague, fatal to men, 
Well needs it we should cram our ears with wool 
And so pace by: but thine are fancies hatch'd 
In silken-folded idleness ; nor is it 
Wiser to weep a true occasion lost. 
But trim our sails, and let old bygones be. 
While down the streams that float us each and all 
To the issue, goes, like glittering bergs of ice. 
Throne after throne, and molten on the waste 
Becomes a cloud : for all things serve their time 
Toward that great year of equal mights and rights, 
Kor would I fight with iron laws, in the end 
Found golden : let the past be past ; let be 
Their cancell'd Babels: tho' the rough kex break 
The starr'd mosaic, and the wild goat haug 
LTpon the shaft, and the wild fig-tree split 
Their monstrous idols, care not while we hear 
A trumpet in the distance pealing news 
Of better, and Hope, a poising eagle, burns 
Above the unrisen morrow:" then to me, 
"Know you no song of your own land," she said, 
" Not such as moans about the retrospect. 
But deals with the other distance and the hues 
Of promise ; not a death's-head at the wine." 

Then I remember'd one myself had made. 
What time I watch'd the swallow winging south 
From mine own land, part made long since, and 

part 
Now while I sang, and maidenlike as far 
As I could ape their treble, did I sing. 

" O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, 
Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves. 
And tell her, tell her what I tell to thee. 

" O tell her. Swallow, thou that knowest each. 
That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, 
And dark and true and tender is the North. 



92 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 



" O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow and light 
Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, 
And cheep and twitter twenty million loves. 

"O were I thou that she might take me in, 
And lay me on her bosom, and her heart 
Would rock the snowy cradle till I died. 

"Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, 
Delaying as the tender ash delays 
To clothe herself, when all the woods are green ? 

" O tell her. Swallow, that thy brood is flown : 
Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, 
But in the North long since my nest is made. 

"O tell her, brief is life, but love is long, 
And brief the sun of summer in the North, 
And brief the moon of beauty in the South. 

" O Swallow, flying from the golden woods. 
Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her 

mine. 
And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee." 

I ceased, and all the ladies, each at each. 
Like the Ithacensian suitors in old time. 
Stared with great eyes, and laugh'd with alien lips, 
And knew not what they meant; for still my voice 
Kang false: but smiling, "Not for thee," she said, 
"O Bulbul, any rose of Gulistau 
Shall burst her veil : marsh-divers, rather, maid. 
Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow-crake 
Grate her harsh kindred in the grass : and this 
A mere love poem ! O for such, my friend, 
We hold them slight : they mind us of the time 
When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves are men, 
That lute and flute fantastic tenderness. 
And dress the victim to the offering up. 
And paint the gates of Hell with Paradise, 
And play the slave to gain the tyranny. 
Poor soul ! I had a maid of honor once ; 
She wept her true eyes blind for such a one, 
A rogue of canzonets and serenades. 
I loved her. Peace be with her. She is dead. 
So they blaspheme the muse ! but great is song 
Used to great ends : ourself have often tried 
Valkyrian hymns, or into rhythm have dash'd 
The passion of the prophetess ; for song 
Is duer unto freedom, force and growth 
Of spirit, than to junketing and love. 
Love is it ? Would this same mock-love, and this 
Mock-Hymen were laid up like winter bats. 
Till all men grew to rate us at our worth. 
Not vassals to be beat, nor pretty babes 
To be dandled, no, but living wills, and sphered 
Whole in ourselves and owed to none. Enough ! 
But now to leaven play with profit, yon, 
Know you no song, the true growth of your soil, 
That gives the manners of your countrywomen ?" 

She spoke and turn'd her sumptuous head with 
eyes 
Of shining expectation flxt on mine. 
Then while I dragg'd my brains for such a song, 
Cyril, with whom the bell-mouth'd flask had wrought. 
Or master'd by the sense of sport, began 
To troll a careless, careless tavern-catch 
Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences 
Unmeet for ladies. Florian nodded at him, 
I frowning ; Psyche flush'd and wann'd and shook ; 
The lilylike Melissa droop'd' her brows ; 
"Forbear," the Princess cried; "Forbear, Sir," I; 
And heated thro' and thro' with wrath and love, 
I smote him on the breast; he started up; 
There rose a shriek as of a city sack'd ; 
Melissa clamor'd, "Flee the death;" "To horse," 
Said Ida ; " home ! to horse !" and fled, as flies 



A troop of snowy doves athwart the dusk. 

When some one batters at the dovecote doors. 

Disorderly the women. Alone I stood 

With Florian, cursing Cyril, vext at heart. 

In the pa-vilion : there like parting hopes 

[ heard them passing from me : hoof by hoof, 

And every hoof a knell to my desires, 

Clang'd on the bridge ; and then another shriek, 

" The Head, the Head, the Princess, O the Head !" 

For blind with rage she miss'd the plank, and roH'd 

In the river. Out I sprang from glow to gloom: 

There whirl'd her white robe like a blossom'd branch 

Rapt to the horrible fall : a glance I gave, 

No more ; but \^man-vested as I was 

Plunged ; and the flood drew ; yet I caught her : 

then 
Oaring one arm, and bearing in my left 
The weight of all the hopes of half the world. 
Strove to buff'et to land in vain. A tree 
Was half-disrooted from his place and stoop'd 
To drench his dark locks in the gurgling wave 
Mid-channel. Right on this we drove and caught. 
And grasping down the boughs I gain'd the shore. 

There stood her maidens glimmeringly group'd 
In the hollow bank. One reaching forward drew 
My burthen from mine arms ; they cried, " She 

lives !" 
They bore her back into the tent ; but I, 
So much a kind of shame within me wrought. 
Not yet endured to meet her opening eyes, 
Nor found my friends ; but push'd alone on foot 
(For since her horse was lost I left her mine) 
Across the woods, and less from Indian craft ■ 
Than beelike instinct hiveward, found at length 
The garden portals. Two great statues, Art 
And Science, Caryatids, lifted up 
A weight of emblem, and betwixt were valves 
Of open-work in which the hunter rued 
His rash intrusion, manlike, but his brows 
Had sprouted, and the branches thereupon 
Spread out at top, and grimly spiked the gates. 

A little space was left between the horns. 
Thro' which I clamber'd o'er at top with pain, 
Dropt on the sward, and up the linden walks, 
And, tost on thoughts that changed from hue to hue, 
Now poring on the glow-worm, now the star, 
I paced the terrace till the bear had wheel'd 
Thro' a great arc his seven slow suns. 

A step 
Of lightest echo, then a loftier form 
Than female, moving thro' the uncertain gloom, 
Distnrb'd me with the doubt "if this were she," 
But it was Florian. "Hist, O hist," he said, 
" They seek us: out so late is out of rules. 
Moreover ' Seize the strangers ' is the cry. 
How came you here?" I told him: "I," said he, 
" Last of the train, a moral leper, I, 
To whom none spake, half-sick at heart, returu'd. 
Arriving all confused among the rest 
With hooded brows I crept into the hall. 
And, couch'd behind a Judith, underneath 
The head of Holoferues peep'd and saw. 
Girl after girl was call'd to trial : each 
Disc.laira'd all knowledge of us : last of all, 
Melissa : trust me, Sir, I pitied her. 
She, qnestion'd if she knew us men, at first 
Was silent; closer prest, denied it not: 
And then, demanded if her mother knew. 
Or Psyche, she afiirm'd not, or denied : 
From whence the Royal mind, familiar with her, 
Easily gather'd either guilt. She sent 
For Psyche, but she was not there ; she call'd 
For Psyche's child to cast it from the doors ; 
She sent for Blanche to accuse her face to face : 
And I alipt out: but whither will you now? 
And where are Psyche, Cyi-il ? both are fled : 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 



93 



What, if together ? that were not so well. 
Would rather we had never come ! I dread 
His wildness, and the chances of the dark." 

"And yet," I said, "you wrong him more than I 
That struck him: this is proper to the clown, 
Tho' sraock'd, or furr'd and purpled, still the clown, 
To harm the thing that trusts him, arid to shame 
That which he says he loves : for Cyril, howe'er 
He deal in frolic, as to-night — the song 
Might have been worse and sinu'd in grosser lips 
Beyond all pardon — as it is, I hold 
These flashes on the surfiice arc not he. 
He has a solid base of temperament : 
But as the water-lily starts and slides 
Upon the level in little puffs of wind, 
Tho' anchor'd to the bottom, such is he." 

Scarce had I ceased when from a tamarisk near 
Two Proctors leapt upon us, crying, " Names," 
He, standing still, was clutch 'd ; but I began 
To thrid the musky-circled mazes, wind 
And double in and out the boles, and race 
By all the fountains : fleet I was of foot : 
Before me shower'd the rose in flakes ; behind 
I heard the puft"'d pursuer ; at mine ear 
Bubbled the nightingale and heeded not, 
And secret laughter tickled all my soul. 
At last I hook'd my ankle in a vine, 
That claspt the feet of a Mnemosyne, 
And falling on my face was caught and known. 

They haled us to the Princess where she sat 
High in the hall: above her droop'd a lamp, 
And made the single jewel on her brow 
Burn like the mystic Are on a mast-head. 
Prophet of storm : a handmaid on each side 
Bow'd toward her, combing out her long black hair 
Damp from the river ; and close behind her stood 
Eight daughters of the plough, stronger than men, 
Huge women blowzed with health, and wind, and 

rain. 
And labor. Each was like a Druid rock; 
Or like a spire of land that stands apart 
Cleft from the main, and wail'd about with mews. 

Then, as we came, the crowd dividing clove 
An advent to the throne ; and there-beside. 
Half-naked, as if caught at once from bed 
And tumbled on the purple footcloth, lay 
The lily-shining child ; and on the left, 
Bow'd on her palms and folded up from wrong. 
Her round white shoulder shaken with her sobs, 
Melissa knelt ; but Lady Blanche erect 
Stood up and spake, an aflluent orator. 

"It was not thus, O Princess, in old days: 
You prized my counsel, lived upon my lips : 
I led you then to all the Castalies ; 
I fed you with the milk of every Muse ; 
I loved you like this kneeler, and you me 
Your second mother: those were gracious times. 
Then came your new friend : you began to change — 
I saw it and grieved — to slacken and to cool ; 
Till taken with her seeming openness 
You turned your warmer currents all to her, 
To me you froze : this was my meed for all. 
Yet I bore up in part from ancient love. 
And partly that I hoped to win you back. 
And partly conscious of my own deserts, 
And partly that you' were my civil head. 
And chiefly you were born for something great. 
In which I might your fellow-worker be. 
When time should serve ; and thus a noble scheme 
Grew up from seed we two long since had sown ; 
In us true growth, in her a Jonah's gourd. 
Up in one night and due to sudden sun: 
We took this palace ; but even from the first 



You stood in your own light and darken'd mine. 
What student came but that you planed her path 
To Lady Psyche, younger, not so wise, 
A foreigner, and I your countrywoman, 
I your old friend and tried, she new in all ? 
But still her lists were swell'd and mine were lean; 
Yet I bore up in hope she would be known : 
Then came these wolves: they knew her: they en- 
dured. 
Long-closeted with her the yester-morn. 
To tell her what they were, and she to hear : 
And me none told : not less to an eye like mine, 
A lidless watcher of the public weal. 
Last night, their mask was patent, and my foot 
Was to you: but I thought again: I fear'd 
To meet a cold ' We thauk you, we shall hear of it 
Prom Lady Psyche:' you had gone to her, 
She told, perforce ; and winning easy grace, 
No doubt, for slight delay, remain'd among us 
In our young nursery still unknown, the stem 
Less grain than touchwood, while my honest heat 
Were all miscounted as malignant haste 
To push my rival out of place and power. 
But public use required she should be known ; 
And since my oath was ta'en for public use, 
I broke the letter of it to keep the sense. 
I spoke not then at first, but watch'd them well. 
Saw that they kept apart, no mischief done ; 
And yet this day (tho' you should hate me for it) 
I came to tell you: found that you had gone, 
Ridd'n to the hills, she likewise: now, I thought. 
That surely she will speak ; if not, then I : 
Did she? These monsters blazon'd what they were. 
According to the coarseness of their kind. 
For thus I hear ; and known at last (my work) 
And full of cowardice and guilty shame, 
I grant in her some sense of shame, she flies ; 
And I remain on whom to wreak your rage, 
I, that have lent my life to build up yours, 
I that have wasted here health, wealth, and time, 
And talents, I— you know it— I will not boast: 
Dismiss me, and I prophesy your plan. 
Divorced from my experience, will be chaff 
For every gust of chance, and men will say 
We did not know the real light, but chased 
The wisp that flickers where no foot can tread." 

She ceased: the Princess answer'd coldly "Good: 
Your oath is broken : we dismiss you : go. 
For this lost lamb (she pointed to the child) 
Our mind is changed: we take it to ourself." 

Thereat the Lady stretch'd u vulture throat. 
And shot from crooked lips a haggard smile. 
"The plan was mine. I built the nest," she said, 
" To hatch the cuckoo. Rise !" and stoop'd to updrag 
Melissa: she, half on her mother propt, 
Half-drooping from her, turn'd her face, and cast 
A liquid look on Ida, full of prayer. 
Which melted Florian's fancy as she hung, 
A Niobean daughter, one arm out. 
Appealing to the bolts of Heaven ; and while 
We gazed upon her came a little stir 
About the doors, and on a sudden rush'd 
Among us, out of breath, as one pursued, 
A woman-post in flying raiment. Fear 
Stared in lier eyes, and chalk'd her face, and wing'd 
Her transit to the throne, whereby she fell 
Delivering seal'd despatches which the Head 
Took half-amazed, and in her lion's mood 
Tore open, silent we with blind surmise 
Regarding, while she read, till over brow 
And cheek and bosom brake the wrathful bloom 
As of some fire .against a stormy cloud, 
When the wild peasant rights himself, the rick 
Flames, and his anger reddens in the heavens ; 
For anger most it seem'd, while now her breast. 
Beaten with some great passion at her heart. 



94 



THP: PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 



Palpitated, her hand shook, and we heard 
In the dead hush the papers that she held 
Rustle: at once the lost lamh at her feet 
Sent out a bitter bleating for its dam ; 
The plaintive cry jarr'd on her ire ; she crush'd 
The scrolls together, made a sudden turn 
As if to speak, but, utterance failing her, 
She whirl'd them on to me, as who should say 
"Read," and I read — two letters — one her sire's. 

"Fair daughter, when we sent the Prince your way 
We knew not your ungracious laws, which learnt, 
We, conscious of what temper you are built, 
Came all in haste to hinder wrong, but fell 
Into his father's hands, who has this night, ' 
You lying close upon his territory, 
Slipt round and in the dark invested yon, 
And here he keeps me hostage for his son." 

The second was my father's, running thus : 
"You have our son: touch not a hair of his head: 
Render him up unscathed: give him your hand: 
Cleave to your contract: tho' indeed we hear 
You hold the woman is the better man ; 
A rampant heresy, such as if it spread 
Would make all women kick against their lords 
Thro' all the world, and which might well deserve 
That we this night should pluck your palace down ; 
And we will do it, unless you send us back 
Our son, on the instant, whole." 

So far I read ; 
And then stood up and spoke impetuously. 

"O not to pry and peer on your reserve, 
But led by golden wishes, and a hope 
The child of regal compact, did I break 
Your precinct ; not a scorner of your sex 
But venerator, zealous it should be 
All that it might be ; hear me, for I bear, 
Tho' man, yet human, whatsoe'er your wrongs. 
Prom the flaxen curl to the gray lock a life 
Less mine than yours : my nurse would tell me of 

you; 
I babbled for you, as babies for the moon. 
Vague brightness ; when a boy, you stoop'd to me 
From all high places, lived in all fair lights. 
Came in long breezes rapt from inmost south 
And blown to inmost north ; at eve and dawn 
With Ida, Ida, Ida, rang the woods ; 
The leader wildswan in among the stars 
Would clang it, and lapt in wreaths of glow-worm 

light 
The mellow breaker murmur'd Ida. Now, 
Because I would have reach'd you, had you been 
Sphered up with Cassiopeia, or the enthroned 
Persephone in Hades, now at length, 
Those winters of abeyance all worn out, 
A man I came to see you : but, indeed. 
Not in this frequence can I lend full tongue, 

noble Ida, to those thoughts that wait 
On you, their centre : let me say but this, 
That many a famous man and woman, town 
And laudskip, have I heard of, after seen 

The dwarfs of prestige ; tho' when known, there grew 
Another kind of beauty in detail 
Made them worth knowing; but in you I found 
My boyish dream involved and dazzled down 
And master'd, while that after-beauty makes 
Such head from act to act, from hour to hour. 
Within me, that except you slay me here. 
According to your bitter statute-book, 

1 can not cease to follow you, as they say 
The seal does music ; who desire you more 
Than growing boys their manhood ; dying lips. 
With many thousand matters left to do, 

The breath of life ; O more than poor men wealth. 
Than sick men health — yours, yours, not mine— but 
half 



Without you, with yon, whole; and of those halves 
You worthiest ; and howe'er you block and bar 
Your heart with system out from mine, I hold 
That it becomes no man to nurse despair, 
But in the teeth of clench'd antagonisms 
To follow up the worthiest till he die : 
Yet that I came not all unauthorized 
Behold your father's letter." 

On one knee 
Kneeling, I gave it, which she caught, and dash'd 
Unopen'd at her feet : a tide of fierce 
Invective seem'd to wait behind her lips. 
As waits a river level with the dam 
Ready to burst and flood the world with foam ; 
And so she would have spoken, but there rose 
A hubbub in the court of half the maids 
Gather'd together : from the illumined hall 
Long lanes of splendor slanted o'er a press 
Of snowy shoulders, thick as herded ewes, 
And rainbow robes, and gems and gem-like eyes. 
And gold and golden heads ; they to and fro 
Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, some pale, 
All open-mouth'd, all gazing to the light. 
Some crying there was an army in the laud. 
And some that men were in the very walls. 
And some they cared not; till a clamor grew 
As of a new-world Babel, woman-built, 
And worse confounded: high above them stood 
The placid marble Muses, looking peace. 

Not peace she look'd, the Head : but rising up 
Robed in the long night of her deep hair, so 
To the open window moved, remaining there 
Fixt like a beacon-tower above the waves 
Of tempest, when the crimson-rolliug eye 
Glares ruin, and the wild birds on the light 
Dash themselves dead. She stretch'd her arms and 

call'd 
Across the tumult and the tumult fell. 

"What fear ye brawlers? am not I your Head? 
On me, me, me, the storm first breaks : / dare 
All these male t'aunderbolts : what is it ye fear ? 
Peace ! there are those to avenge us and they come : 
If not, — myself were like enough, O girls, 
To unfurl the maiden banner of our rights. 
And clad in iron burst the ranks of war. 
Or, falling, protomartyr of our cause. 
Die: yet I blame ye not so much for fear; 
Six thousand years of fear have made ye that 
From which I would redeem ye : but for those 
That stir this hubbub— you and you— I know 
Your faces there in the crowd — to-morrow morn 
We hold a great convention : then shall they 
That love their voices more than duty, leara 
With whom they deal, dismiss'd in shame to live 
No wiser than their mothers, household stuff, 
Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame, 
Full of weak poison, turnspits for the clown. 
The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks of 'Time, 
Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels, 
But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum, 
To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour, 
Forever slaves at home and fools abroad." 

She, ending, waved her hands : thereat the crowd 
Muttering dissolved : then with a smile, that look'd 
A stroke of cruel sunshine on the cliff, 
When all the glens are drown'd in azure gloom 
Of thunder-shower, she floated to us and said : 

"You have done well and like a gentleman. 
And like a prince: you have our thanks for all: 
And you look well too in your woman's dress : 
Well have you done and like a gentleman. 
You saved our life : we owe you bitter thanks : 
Better have died and spilt our bones in the flood — 
Then men had said— but now— What hinders me 



THE PRINCESS : A MEDLEY. 



95 



To take such bloody vengeance on you both? — 
Yet since our father— Wasps in our good hive, 
You would-be quenchers of the light to be, 
Barbarians, grosser than your native bears— 

would I had his sceptre for one hour ! 

You that have dared to break our bound, and gull'd 
Our servants, wroug'd and lied and thwarted us — 
/ wed with thee ! / bound by precontract 
Your bride, your bondslave ! not tho' all the gold 
That veins the world were pack'd to make your 

crown, 
And every spoken tongue should lord you. Sir, 
Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us : 

1 trample on your offers and on you: 
Begone : we will not look upon you more. 
Here, push them out at gates." 

In wrath she spake. 
Then those eight mighty daughters of the plough 
Bent their broad faces toward us and address'd 
Their motion: twice I sought to plead my cau,;e. 
But on my shoulder hung their heavy hands. 
The weight of destiny : so from her face 
They push'd us, down the steps, and thro' the court, 
And with grim laughter thrust us out at gates. 

We cross'd the street and gain'd a petty mound 
Beyond it, whence we saw the lights and heard 
The voices murmuring. While I listen'd, came 
On a sudden the weird seizure and the doubt: 
I seem'd to move among a world of ghosts ; 
The Princess with her monstrous woman-guard, 
The jest and earnest working side by side. 
The cataract and. the tumult and the kings 
Were shadows ; and the long fontastic night 
With all its doings had and had not been. 
And all things were and were not. 

This went by 
As strangely as it came, and on my spirits 
Settled a gentle cloud of melancholy ; 
Not long; I shook it off; for spite of doubts 
And sudden ghostly shadowings I was one 
To whom the touch of all mischance but came 
As night to him that sitting on a hill 
Sees the midsummer, midnight, Norway sun 
Set into sunrise : then we moved away. 

Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums. 

That beat to battle where he stands; 
Thy face across his fancy comes. 

And gives the battle to his hands : 
A moment, while the trumpets blow. 

He sees his brood about thy kuee ; 
The next, like fire he meets the foe. 

And strikes him dead for thine and thee. 

So Lilia sang: we thought her half-possess'd, 
She struck such warbling fury thro' the words ; 
And, after, feigning pique at what she call'd 
The raillery, or grotesque, or false sublime — 
Like one that wishes at a dance to change 
The music— clapt her hands and cried for war, 
Or some grand fight to kill and make an end: 
And he that next inherited the tale 
Half turning to the broken statue said, 
"Sir.Ealph has got your colors: if I prove 
Your knight, and fight your battle, what for me?" 
It chanced, her empty glove upon the tomb 
Lay by her like a model of her hand. 
She took it and she flung it. "Fight," she said, 
" And make us all we would be, great and good." 
He knightlike in his cap instead of casque, 
A cap of Tyrol borrow'd from the hall. 
Arranged the favor, and assumed the Prince. 



Now, scarce three paces measured from the mound, ' 

We stumbled on a stationary voice, 

And " Stand, who goes ?" "Two from the palace,"!. 



" The second two : they wait," he said, " pass on : 
His Highness wakes :" and one, that clash'd in arm.«, 
By glimmering lanes and walls of canvas, led 
Threading the soldier-city, till we heard 
The drowsy folds of our great ensign shake 
From blazon'd lions o'er the imperial tent 
Whispers of war. 

Entering, the sudden light 
Dazed me half-blind : I stood and seem'd to hear, 
As in a poplar grove when a light wind wakes 
A lisping of the innnmerous leaf and dies. 
Each hissing in his neighbor's ear; and then 
A strangled titter, out of which there brake 
On all sides, clamoring etiquette to death. 
Unmeasured mirth; while now the two old kings 
Began to wag their baldness up and down. 
The fresh young captains flash'd their glittering teeth. 
The huge bush-bearded Barons heaved and blew, 
And slain with laughter roll'd the gilded Squire. 

At length my Sire, his rough cheek wet with tears, 
Panted from weary sides, "King, you are free 1 
We did but keep you surety for our son. 
If this be he,— or a draggled mawkin, thou, 
That tends her bristled grunters in the sludge :" 
For I was drench'd with ooze, and torn,*ith briers, 
More crumpled than a poppy from the sneath. 
And all one rag, disprinced from head to heel. 
Then some one sent beneath his vaulted palm 
A whisper'd jest to some one near him "Look, 
He has been among his shadows." "Satan take 
The old women and their shadows ! (thus the King 
Roar'd) make yourself a man to fight with men. 
Go : Cyril told us all." 

As boys that slink 
From ferule and the trespass-chiding eye, 
Away we stole, and transient in a trice 
From what was left of faded woman-slough 
To sheathing splendors and the golden scale 
Of harness, issued in the sun, that now 
Leapt from the dewy shoulders of the Earth, 
And hit the northern hills. Here Cyril met us, 
A little shy at first, but by and by 
We twain, with mutual pardon ask'd and given 
For stroke and song, resolder'd peace, whereon 
Followed his tale. Amazed he fled away 
Thro' the dark land, and later in the night 
Had come on Psyche weeping: "then we fell 
Into your father's hand, and there she lies. 
But will nt>t speak, nor stir." 

He show'd a tent 
A stone-shot off: we euter'd in, and there 
Among piled arms and rough accoutrements, 
Pitiful sight, wrapt in a soldier's cloak, 
Like some sweet sculpture draped from head to foot, 
And push'd by rude hands from its pedestal, 
All her fair length upon the ground she lay : 
And at her head a follower of the camp, 
A charr'd and wrinkled piece of womanhood, 
Sat watching like a watcher by the dead. 

Then Florian knelt, and " Come," he whisper'd to 
her, 
" Lift up your head, sweet sister : lie not thus. 
What have you done, but right ? you could not slay 
Me, nor your prince : look up : be comforted : 
Sweet is it to have done the thing one ought. 
When fall'n in darker ways." And likewise I : 
"Be comforted: have I not lost her too. 
In whose least act abides the nameless charm 
That none has else for me?" She heard, she moved, 
She moan'd, a folded voice ; and up she sat. 
And raised the cloak from brows as pale and smooth 
As those that mourn half-shrouded over death 
In deathless marble. "Her," she said, "my friend- 
Parted from her — betray'd her cause and mine — 
Where shall I breathe? why kept ye not your faith? 
O base and bad ! what comfort ? none for me !" 
To whom remorseful Cyril, "Yet I pray 



THE PRINCESS : A MEDLEY. 



Take comfort : live, dear lady, for your child !" 
At which she lifted up her voice aud cried. 

"Ah me, my babe, my blossom, ah my child. 
My one sweet child, whom I shall see no more ! 
For now will cruel, Ida keep her back ; 
And either she will die for want of care. 
Or sicken with ill usage, when they say 
The child is hers— for every little fault, 
The child is hers ; and they will beat my girl 
Remembering her mother: O my flower 1 
Or they will take her, they will make her hard, 
And she will pass me by in after-life 
With some cold reverence worse thau were she dead. 
Ill mother that I was to leave her there, 
To lag behind, scared by the cry they made, 
The horror of the shame among them all : 
But I will go and sit beside the doors. 
And make a wild petition night and day, 
Until they hate to hear me like a wind 
Wailing forever, till they open to me, 
And lay my little blossom at my feet. 
My babe, my sweet Aglaia, my one child : 
And I will take her up aud go my way. 
And satisij|my soul with kissing her: 
Ah! what might that man not deserve of me. 
Who gave me back my child?" "Be comforted," 
Said Cyril, "you shall have it," but again 
She veil'd her "brows, and proue she sank, and so 
Like tender things that being caught feigu death. 
Spoke not, nor stirr'd. 

By this a murmur ran 
Thro' all the camp and inward raced the scouts 
With rumor of Prince Arac hard at hand. 
We left her by the woman, aud vdthout 
Found the gray kings at parle: and "Look you," 

cried 
My father, "that our compact be fulflll'd 
You have spoilt this child; she laughs at you and 

taan: 
She wrongs herself, her sex, and me, and him: 
But red-faced war has rods of steel and fire ; 
She yields, or war." 

Then Gama turn'd to me: 
" We fear, indeed, you spent a stormy time 
With our strange girl : and yet they say that still 
You love her. Give us, then, your mind at large : 
How say you, war or not?" 

" Not war, if possible, 

king," I said, "lest from the abuse of war, 
The desecrated shrine, the trampled year. 

The smouldering homestead, and the household flower 
Torn from the lintel — all the common wrong — 
A smoke go up thro' which I loom to her 
Three times a monster : now she lightens scorn 
At him that mars her plan, but then would hate 
(And every voice she talk'd with ratify it, 
And every face she look'd on justify it) 
The general foe. More soluble is this knot, 
By gentleness than war. I want her love. 
What were I nigher this altho' we dash'd 
Your cities into shards with catapults. 
She would not love ; — or brought her chain'd, a slave, 
The lifting of whose eyelash is my lord, 
Not ever would she love ; but brooding turn 
The book of scorn till all my little chance 
Were caught within the record of her wrongs, 
And crush'd to death : and rather, Sire, than this 

1 would the old god of war himself were dead. 
Forgotten, rusting on his iron hills, 

Kottiug on some wild shore with ribs of wreck. 
Or like an old-world mammoth bulk'd in ice. 
Not to be molten out." 

And roughly spake 
My father, "Tut, you know them not, the girls. 
Boy, when I hear you prate I almost think 
That idiot legend credible. Look you, Sir ! 
Man is the hunter ; woman is his game : 



The sleek and shining creatures of the chase. 
We hunt them for the beauty of their skius ; 
They love us for it, and we ride them down. 
Wheedling and siding with them ! Out ! for shame ! 
Boy, there's no rose that's half so dear to them 
As he that does the thing they dare not do. 
Breathing and sounding beauteous battle, comes 
With the air of the trumpet round him, and leaps in 
Among the women, snares them by the score 
Flatter'd and fluster'd, wins, though dash'd with death 
He reddens what he kisses: thus I won 
Your mother, a good mother, a good wife, 
Worth winning; but this firebrand — gentleness 
To such as her ! if Cyril spake her true, 
To catch a dragon in a cherry net. 
To trip a tigress with a gossamer. 
Were wisdom to it." 

"Yea, but Sire," I cried, 
"Wild natures need wise curbs. The soldier? No: 
What dares not Ida do that she should prisse 
The soldier? I beheld her, when she rose 
The yester-night, and storming in extremes 
Stood for her cause, and flung defiance down 
Gagelike to man, and had not shunn'd the death, 
No, not the soldier's : yet I hold her, king. 
True woman : but you clash them all in one, 
That have as many differences as we. 
The violet varies from the lily as far 
As oak from elm: one loves the soldier, one 
The silken priest of peace, one this, one that. 
And some unworthily; their sinless faith, 
A maiden moon that sparkles on a sty. 
Glorifying clown and satyr; whence they need 
More breadth of culture : is not Ida right ? 
They worth it ? truer to the law within ? 
Severer in the logic of a life ? 
Twice as magnetic to sweet influences 
Of earth and heaven ? and she of whom you speak. 
My mother, looks as whole as some serene 
Creation minted in the golden moods 
Of sovereign artists ; not a thought, a touch. 
But pure as lines of green that streak the white 
Of the first snowdrop's inner leaves ; I say, 
Not like the piebald miscellany, man, 
Bursts of great heart and slips in sensual mire. 
But whole aud one: and take them all-in-all. 
Were we ourselves but half as good, as kind. 
As truthful, much that Ida claims as right 
Had ne'er been mooted, but as frankly theirs 
As dues of Nature. To our point : not war : 
Least I lose all." 

"Nay, nay, you spake but sense," 
Said Gama. "We remember love ourselves 
In our sweet youth ; we did not rate him then 
This red-hot iron to be shaped with blows. 
You talk almost like Ida : she can talk ; 
And there is something in it as you say: 
But you talk kindlier: we esteem you for it.— 
He seems a gracious and a gallant Prince, 
I would he had our daughter: for the rest. 
Our own deteution, why the causes weigh'd, 
Fatherly fears — you used us courteously — 
We would do much to gratify your Prince— 
We pardon it ; and for your ingress here 
Upon the skirt and fringe of our fair land. 
You did but come as goblins in the night. 
Nor in the furrow broke the ploughman's head. 
Nor burnt the grange, nor buss'd the milkingmaid, 
Nor robb'd the farmer of his bowl of cream : 
But let your Prince (our royal word upon it, 
He comes back safe) ride with us to our lines, 
And speak with Arac: Arac's word is thrice 
As ours with Ida: something may be done— 
I know not what — and ours shall see us friends. 
You, likewise, our late guests, if so you will, 
Follow us : who knows ? we four may build some 

plan 
Foursquare to opposition." 



THE PRINCESS : A MEDLEY. 



97 



Here he reach'd 
White hands of farewell to my sire, who growl'd 
An answer which, half-muffled in his beard, 
Let 80 much out as gave us leave to go. 

Then rode we with the old king across the lawas 
Beneath huge trees, a thousand rings of Spring 
In every bole, a song on every spray 
Of birds that piped their Valentines, and woke 
Desire in me to infuse my tale of love 
la the old king's ears, who promised help, and oozed 
All o'er with honey'd answer as we rode; 
And blossom-fragrant slipt the heavy dews 
Gather'd by night and peace, with each light air 
On our mail'd heads : but other thoughts than Peace 
Burnt in us, when we saw the embattled squares. 
And squadrons of the Prince, trampling the flowers 
With clamor: for among them rose a cry 
As if to greet the king : they made a halt ; 
The horses yell'd; they clash'd their arms ; the drum 
Beat ; merrily-blowing shrill'd the martial flfe ; 
And in the blast and bray of the long horn 
And serpent-throated bugle, undulated 
The banner: anon to meet us lightly pranced 
Three captains out ; nor ever had I seen 
Such thews of men : the midmost and the highest 
Was Arac: all about his motion clung 
The shadow of his sister, as the beam 
Of the East, that play'd upon them, made them glance 
Like those three stars of the airy Giant's zone, 
■ That glitter burnish'd by the frosty dark ; 
And as the fiery Sirius alt€rs hue. 
And bickers into red and emerald, shone 
Their morions, wash'd with morning, as they came. 

And I that prated peace, when first I heard 
AVar-music, felt the blind wildbeast of force. 
Whose home is in the sinews of a man. 
Stir in me as to strike : then took the king 
His three broad sons ; with now a wandering hand 
And now a pointed finger, told them all: 
A common light of smifes at our disguise 
Broke from their lips, and, ere the windy jest 
Had labor'd down within his ample lungs. 
The genial giant, Arac, roll'd himself 
Thrice in the saddle, then burst out in words. 

" Our land Invaded, 'sdeath ! and he himself 
Your captive, yet my father wills not war: 
And, 'sdeath ! myself, what care I, war or no ? 
But then this question of yonr troth remains: 
And there 's a downright honest meaning in her; 
She fiies too high, she flies too high ! and yet 
She ask'd but space and fairplay for her scheme: 
She prest and prest it on me — I myself. 
What know I of these things ? but, life and soul ! 
I thought her half-right talking of her wrongs : 
I say she flies too high, 'sdeath! what of that? 
I take her for the flower of womankind, 
And so I often told her, right or wrong. 
And, Prince, she cau be sweet to those she loves. 
And, right or wrong, I care not : this is all, 
I stand upon her side : she made me swear it — 
'Sdeath,— and with solemn rites by candlelight — 
Swear by St. something — I forget her name — 
Her that talk'd down the fifty wisest men : 
She was a princess too; and so I swore. 
Come, this is all ; she will not : waive your claim, 
If not, the foughteu field, what else, at once 
Decides it, 'sdeath ! against my father's will." 

I lagg'd in answer loath to render up 
My precontract, and loath by brainless war 
To cleave the rift of difi"erence deeper yet ; 
Till one of those two brothers, half aside 
And fingering at the hair about his lip. 
To prick us on to combat " Like to like 1 
The woman's garment hid the woman's heart." 



A taunt that clench'd his purpose like a blow ! 

For fiery-short was Cyril's counter-scofi'. 

And sharp I answer'd, touch'd upon the point 

Where idle boys are cowards to their shame, 

" Decide it here> why not? we are three to three." 

Then spake the third, "But three to three? no 
more ? 
No more, and in our noble sister's cause? 
More, more, for honor : every captain waits 
Hungry for honor, angry for his king. 
More, more, some fifty on a side, that each 
May breathe himself, and quick ! by overthrow 
Of these or those, the question settled die." 

"Yea," answer'd I, "for this wild wreath of air. 
This flake of rainbow flying on the highest 
Foam of men's deeds— this honor, if ye will. 
It needs must be for honor if at all : 
Since, what decision ? if we fail, we fail. 
And if we win, we fail: she would not keep 
Her compact." "'Sdeath ! but we will send to her," 
Said Arac, "worthy reasons why she should 
Bide by this issue : let our missive thro'. 
And you shall have her answer by the word.' 

"Boys !" shriek'd the old king, but vainlier than 
a hen 
To her false daughters in the pool ; for none 
Regarded; neither seem'd there more to say: 
Back rode we to my father's camp, and found 
He thrice had sent a herald to the gates. 
To learn if Ida yet would cede our claim, 
Or by denial flush her babbling wells 
With her own people's life: three times he went: 
The first, he blew and blew, but none appear'd: 
He batter'd at the doors ; none came : the next. 
An awful voice within had warn'd him thence: 
The. third, and those eight daughters of the plough 
Came sallying thro' the gates, and caught his hair, 
And so belabor'd him on rib and cheek 
They made him wild : not less one glance he caught 
Thro' open doors of Ida station'd there 
Unshaken, clinging to her purpose, firm 
Tho' compass'd by two armies and the noise 
Of arms ; and standing like a stately Pine 
Set in a cataract on an island-crag, 
When storm is on the heights, and right and left 
Suck'd from the dark heart of the long hills roll 
The torrents, dash'd to the vale : and yet her will 
Bred will in me to overcome it or fall. 

But when I told the king that I was pledged 
To fight in tourney for my bride, he clash'd 
His iron palms together with a cry ; 
Himself would tilt it out among the lads: 
But overborne by all his bearded lords 
With reasons drawn from age and state, perforce 
He yielded, wroth and red, wth fierce demur: 
And many a bold knight started np in heat, 
And sware to combat for my claim till death. 

All on this side the palace ran the field 
Flat to the garden wall : and likewise here. 
Above the garden's glowing blossom-belts, 
A column'd entry shone and marble stairs, 
And great bronze valves, emboss'd with Tomyris 
And what she did to Cyrus after fight, 
But now fast barr'd : so here upon the flat 
All that long morn the lists were hamraer'd up. 
And all that morn the heralds to and fro. 
With message and defiance, went and came ; 
Last, Ida's answer, in a royal hand. 
But shaken here and there, and rolling words 
Oration-like. I kiss'd it and I read. 

" O brother, you have known the pangs we felt, 
What heats of indignation when we heard 



98 



THE PKINCESS : A MEDLEY. 



Of those that iron-cramp'd their women's feet ; 

Of lands in which at the altar the poor bride 

Gives her harsh groom for bridal-gift a scourge ; 

Of living hearts that crack within the fire 

Where smoulder their dead despots ; and of those, — 

Mothers,— that, all prophetic pity, fling 

Their pretty maids in the running flood, and swoops 

The vulture, beak and talon, at the heart 

Made for all noble motion: and I saw 

That equal baseness lived in sleeker times 

With smoother men : the old leaven leaven'd all : 

Millions of throats would bawl for civil rights, 

No woman named: therefore I set my face 

Against all men, and lived but for mine own. 

Far off from men I built a fold for them : 

I stored it full of rich memorial : 

I fenced it round with gallant institutes. 

And biting laws to scare the beasts of prey. 

And prosper'd; till a rout of saucy boys 

Brake on us at our books, and marr'd our peace, 

Mask'd like our maids, blustering I know not what 

Of insolence and love, some pretext held 

Of baby troth, invalid, since my will 

Seal'd not the bond— the striplings I— for their sport ! — 

I tamed my leopards : shall I not tame these ? 

Or you? or I? for since you think me touch'd 

In honor — what, I would not aught of false — 

Is not our cause pure ? and whereas I know 

Your prowess, Arac, and what mother's blood 

You draw from, fight; you failing, I abide 

What end soever : fail you will not. Still 

Take not his life: he risk'd it for my own; 

His mother lives : yet whatsoe'er you do, 

Fight and fight well ; strike and strike home. O dear 

Brothers, the woman's Angel guards you, you 

The sole men to be mingled with our cause. 

The sole men we shall prize in the after-time. 

Your very armor hallow'd, and your statues 

Kear'd, sung to, when this gad-fly brush'd aside, 

M^e plant a solid foot into the Time, 

And mould a generation strong to move 

With claim on claim from right to right, till she 

Whose name is yoked with children's, know herself; 

And Knowledge in our own land make her free. 

And, ever following those two crowned twins. 

Commerce and conquest, shower the fiery grain 

Of freedom broadcast over all that orbs 

Between the Northern and the Southern mom." 

Then came a postcript dash'd across the rest. 
" See that there be no traitors in your camp : 
We seem a nest of traitors— none to trust : 
Since our arms fail'd— this Egypt plague of men ! 
Almost our maids were better at their homes, 
Than thus man-girdled here : indeed I think 
Our chiefest comfort is the little child 
Of one unworthy mother ; which she left : 
She shall not have it back : the child shall grow 
To prize the authentic mother of her mind. 
I took it for an hour in mine own bed 
This morning: there the tender orphan hands 
Felt at my heart, and seem'd to charm from thence 
The wrath I nursed against the world: farewell." 

I ceased; he said: "Stubborn, but she may sit 
Upon a king's right hand in thunder-storms. 
And breed up warriors ! See now, tho' yourself 
Be dazzled by the wildfire Love to sloughs 
That swallow common sense, the spindling king. 
This Gama swamp'd in lazy tolerance. 
When the man wants weight, the woman takes it up. 
And topples down the scales ; but this is fixt 
As are the roots of earth and base of all ; 
Man for the field and woman for the hearth; 
Man for the sword and for the needle she: 
Man with the head and woman with the heart: 
Man to command and woman to obey ; 



All else confusion. Look you ! the gray mare 
Is ill to live with, when her whinny shrills 
Prom tile to scullery, and her small goodman 
Shrinks in his arm-chair while the fires of Hell 
Mix with his hearth: but you — she's yet a colt- 
Take, break her : strongly groom'd and straitly curb'd 
She might not rank with those detestable 
That let the bantling scald at home, and brawl 
Their rights or wrongs like potherbs in the street. 
They say she's comely ; there's the fairer chance : 
/ like her none the less for rating at her ! 
Besides, the woman wed is not as we, 
But suffers change of frame. A lusty brace 
Of twins may weed her of her folly. Boy, 
The bearing and the training of a child 
Is woman's wisdom." 

Thus the hard old king: 
I took my leave, for it was nearly noon : 
I pored upon her letter which I held. 
And on the little clause "take not his life:" 
I mused on that wild morning in the woods. 
And on the "Follow, follow, thou shalt win :" 
I thought on all the wrathful king had said. 
And how the strange betrothment was to end : 
Then I remember'd that burnt sorcerer's curse 
That one should fight with shadows and should fa" : 
And like a flash the weird aflection came: 
King, camp and college turn'd to hollow shows : 
I seem'd to move in old memorial tilts. 
And doing battle with forgotten ghosts. 
To dream myself the shadow of a dream : 
And ere I woke it was the point of noon. 
The lists were ready. Empanoplied and plumed 
We enter'd in, and waited, fifty there 
Opposed to fifty, till the trumpet blared 
At the barrier like a wild horn in a land 
Of echoes, and a moment, and once more 
The trumpet, and again : at which the storm 
Of galloping hoofs bare on the ridge of spears 
And riders front to front, until they closed 
In conflict with the crash of shivering points. 
And thunder. Yet it seem'd a dream ; I dream'd 
Of fighting. On his haunches rose the steed, 
And into fiery splinters leapt the lance. 
And out of stricken helmets sprang the fire. 
A noble dream f what was it else I saw ? 
Part sat like rocks ; part reel'd but kept their seats -, 
Part roll'd on the earth and rose again and drew : 
Part stumbled mi.xt with floundering horses. Down 
From those two bulks at Arac's side, and down 
From Arac's arm, as from a giant's flail, 
The large blows rain'd, as here and everywhere 
He rode the mellay, lord of the ringing lists, 
And all the plain — brand, mace, and shaft, and 

shield — 
Shock'd, like an iron-clanging anvil bang'd 
With hammers ; till I thought, can this be he 
From Gama's dwarfish loins ? if this be so, 
The mother makes us most— and in my dreaiii 
I glanced aside, and saw the palace-front 
Alive with fluttering scarfs and ladies' eyes, 
And highest, among the statues, statue-like. 
Between a cymbal'd Miriam and a Jael, 
With Psyche's babe, was Ida watching us, 
A single band of gold about her hair. 
Like a Saint's glory up in heaven: but she 
No saint — inexorable — no tenderness — 
Too hard, too cruel : yet she sees me fight. 
Yea, let her see me fall ! with that I drave 
Among the thickest and bore down a Prince, 
And Cyril, one. Yea, let me make my dream 
All that I would. But that large-moulded man, 
His visage all agrin as at a wake, 
Made at me thro' the press, and, staggering back 
With stroke on stroke the horse and horseman, came 
As comes a pillar of electric cloud. 
Flaying the roofs and sucking np the drains, 
And shadowing down the champaign till it strikes 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 



99 



On a wood, and takes, and breaks, and cracks, and 

splits, 
And twists the grain with snch a roar that Earth 
Reels, and the herdsmen cry ; for everything 
Gave way before him : only Florian, he 
That loved me closer than his own right eye. 
Thrust in between ; but Arac rode him down : 
And Cyril seeing it, push'd against the Prince, 
With Psyche's color round his helmet, tough. 
Strong, supple, sinew-corded, apt at arms ; 
But tougher, heavier, stronger, he that smote 
And threw him : last I spurr'd ; I felt my veins 
Stretch with fierce heat; a moment hand to hand, 
And sword to sword, and horse to horse we hung, 
Till I struck out and shouted ; the blade glanced ; 
I did but shear a feather, and dream and truth 
Flow'd from me ; darkness closed me ; and I fell. 



Home they brought her warrior dead: 
She nor swoon'd, nor utter'd cry: 

All her maidens, watching, said, 
"She must weep or she will die." 

Then they praised him, soft and low, 

Call'd him worthy to be loved, 
Truest friend and noblest foe ; 

Yet she neither spoke nor moved. 

Stole a maiden from her place, 

Lightly to the warrior stept. 
Took the face-cloth from the face ; 

Yet she neither moved nor wept. 

Rose a nurse of ninety years. 

Set his child upon her knee — 
Like summer tempest came her tears — 

"Sweet my child, I live for thee." 

VI. 

My dream had never died or lived again. 
As in some mystic middle state I lay 
Seeing I saw not, hearing not I heard : 
Tho', if I saw not, yet they told me all 
So often that I spake as having seen. 

For so it seem'd, or so they said to me. 
That all things grew more tragic and more strange : 
That when our side was vanquish'd and my cause 
Forever lost, there went up a great cry, 
The Prince is slain. My father heard and ran 
In on the lists, and there unlaced my casque 
And grovell'd on my body, and after him 
Came Psyche, sorrowing for Aglai'a. 

But high upon the palace Ida stood 
With Psyche's babe in arm : there on the roofs 
Like that great dame of Lapidoth she sang. 

" Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n ; the seed 
The little .«eed they laugh'd at in the dark, 
Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk 
Of spanless girth, that lays on every side 
A thousand arms and rushes to the Sun. 

"Oar enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they came: 
The leaves were wet with women's tears : they heard 
A noise of songs they would not understand : 
They mark'd it with the red cross to the fall. 
And would have strown it, and are fall'n themselves. 

" Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n : they came. 
The woodmen with their axes : lo the tree ! 
But we will make it fagots for the hearth. 
And shape it plank and beam for roof and floor, 
And boats and bridges for the use of men. 

" Our enemies have fall'n, have fsill'n : they struck ; 
With their own blows they hurt themselves, nor 
knew 



There dwelt an iron nature in the grain : 
The glittering axe was broken in their arms. 
Their arms were shatter'd to the shoulder blade. 

"Our enemies have fall'u, but this shall grow 
A night of Summer from the heat, a breadth 
Of Autumn, dropping fruits of power ; and roU'd 
With music in the growing breeze of Time, 
The tops shall strike from star to star, the fangs 
Shall move the stony bases of the world. 

"And now, maids, behold our sanctuary 
Is violate, our laws broken : fear we not 
To break them more in their behoof, whose arms 
Champion' d our cause and won it with a day 
Blanch'd in our annals, and perpetual feast. 
When dames and heroines of the golden year 
Shall strip a hundred hollows bare of Spring, 
To rain an April of ovation round 
Their statues, borne aloft, the three : but come, 
We will be liberal, since our rights are won. 
Let them not lie in the tents with coarse mankind, 
111 nurses ; but descend, and proffer these 
TOe brethren of our blood and cause, that there 
Lie bruised and maim'd, the tender ministries 
Of female hands and hospitality." 

She spoke, and with the babe yet in her arms. 
Descending, burst the great bronze valves, and led 
A hundred maids in train across the Park. 
Some cowl'd, and some bare-headed, on they came. 
Their feet in flowers, her loveliest : by them went 
The enamor'd air sighing, and on their curls 
From the high tree the blossom wavering fell. 
And over them the tremulous isles of light, 
Slided, they moving under shade : but Blanche 
At distance follow'd : so they came : anon 
Thro' open field into the lists they wound 
Timorously ; and as the leader of the herd 
That holds a stately fretwork to the Sun, 
And follow'd up by a hundred airy does, 
Steps with a tender foot, light as on air. 
The lovely, lordly creature floated on 
To where her vs'ounded brethren lay; there stay'd; 
Knelt on one knee,— the child on one,— and prest 
Their hands, and call'd them dear deliverers. 
And happy warriors and immortal names. 
And said, "You shall not lie in the tents but here. 
And nursed by those for whom you fought, and 

served 
With female hands and hospitality." 

Then, whether moved by this, or was it chance. 
She past my way. Up started from my side 
The old lion, glaring with his whelpless eye. 
Silent ; but when she saw me lying stark, 
Dishelm'd and mute, and motionlessly pale. 
Cold ev'n to her, she sigh'd ; and when she saw 
The haggard father's face and reverend beard 
Of grisly twine, all dabbled with the blood 
Of his own son, shudder'd, a twitch of pain 
Tortured her mouth, and o'er her forehead past 
A shadow, and her hue changed, and she said: 
"He saved my life: my brother slew him for it." 
No more : at which the king in bitter scorn 
Drew from my neck the painting and the tress, 
And held them up : she saw them, and a day 
Rose from the distance on her memory. 
When the good Queen, her mother, shore the tress 
With kisses, ere the days of Lady Blanche : 
And then once more she look'd at my pale face : 
Till understanding all the foolish work 
Of Fancy, and the bitter close of all. 
Her iron will was broken in her mind ; 
Her noble heart was molten in her breast ; 
She bow'd, she set the child on the earth ; she laid 
A feeling finger on my brows, and presently 



100 



THE PRINCESS : A MEDLEY. 



"O Sire," she said, "he lives: he is not dead: 
O let me have him with my brethren here 
In our own palace : we will tend on him 
Like one of these ; if so, by any means. 
To lighten this great clog of thanks, that make 
Our progress falter to the woman's goal." 

She said: but at the happy word "he lives," 
My lather stoop'd, re-father'd o'er my wounds. 
So those two foes above my fallen life, 
With brow to brow like night and evening mixt 
Their dark and graj', while Psyche ever stole 
A little nearer, till the babe that by us, 
Half-lapt in glowing gauze and golden brede, 
Lay like a new-fall'n meteor on the grass, 
Uncared for, spied its mother and began 
A blind and babbling laughter, and to dance 
Its body, and reach its fatling innocent arms 
And lazy lingering lingers. She the appeal 
Brook'd not, but clamoring out " Mine— mine— not 

yours. 
It is not yours, but mine : give me the child," 
Ceased all on tremble : piteous was the cry : 
So stood the unhappy mother open-mouth'd, ' 
And turn'd each face her way : wan was her cheek 
With hollow watch, her blooming mantle torn. 
Red grief and mother's hunger in her eye, 
And down dead-heavy sank her curls, and half 
The sacred mother's bosom, panting, burst 
The laces toward her babe ; but she nor cared 
Nor knew it, clamoring on, till Ida heard, 
Look'd up, and rising slowly from me, stood 
Erect and silent, striking with her glance 
The mother, me, the child ; but he that lay 
Beside us, Cyril, batter'd as he was, 
Trail'd himself up on one knee : then he drew 
ITer robe to meet his lips, and down she look'd 
At the arm'd man sideways, pitying, as it seem'd, 
Or self-involved; but when she learnt his face, 
Remembering his ill-omen'd song, arose 
Once more thro' all her height, and o'er him grew 
Tall as a figure lengthen'd on the sand 
When the tide ebbs in sunshine, and he said : 

"0 fair and strong and terrible! Lioness 
That with your long locks play the Lion's mane ! 
But Love and Nature, these are two more terrible 
And stronger. See, your foot is on our necks. 
We vanqnish'd, you the Victor of your will. 
What would you more ? give her the child ! remain 
Orb'd in your isolation: he is dead. 
Or all as dead : henceforth we let you be : 
Win you the hearts of women ; and beware 
Lest, where yon seek the common love of these. 
The common hate with the revolving wheel 
Should drag you down, and some great Nemesis 
Break from a darken'd future, crown'd with fire, 
And tread you out forever : but howsoe'er 
Fix'd in yourself, never in your own arms 
To hold your own, deny not hers to her. 
Give her the child ! O if, I say, you keep 
One pulse that beats true woman, if you loved 
The breast that fed or arm that dandled you. 
Or own one part of sense not flint to prayer. 
Give her the child ! or if you scorn to lay it. 
Yourself, in hands so lately claspt with yours, 
Or speak to her, your dearest, her one fault 
The tenderness, not yours, that could not Mil, 
Give me it; I vrill give it her." 

He said: 
At first her eye with slow dilation roll'd 
Dry flame, she listening: after sank and sank 
And, into mournful twilight mellowing, dwelt 
Full on the child; she took it: "Pretty bud! 
Lily of the vale : half-open'd bell of the woods ! 
Sole comfort of my dark hour, when a world 
Of traitorous friend and broken system made 
No purple in the distance, mystery, 



Pledge of a love not to be mine, farewell ; 
These men are hard upon us as of old. 
We two must part: and yet how fain was I 
To dream thy cause embraced in mine, to think 
I might be something to thee, when I felt 
Thy helpless warmth about my barren breast 
In the dead prime : but may thy mother prove 
As true to thee as false, false, false to me ! 
And, if thou needs must bear the yoke, I wish it 
Gentle as freedom " — here she kissed it : then — 
" All good go with thee ! take it, Sir," and so 
Laid the soft babe in his hard-mailed hands, 
Who turn'd half-round to Psyche as she sprang 
To meet it, with an eye that swum in thanks ; 
Then felt it sound and whole from head to foot. 
And hngg'd and never hugg'd it close enough. 
And in her hunger mouth'd and mumbled it. 
And hid her bosom with it; after that 
Put on more calm and added suppliantly: 

"We two were friends: I go to mine own land 
Forever: find some other: as for me 
I scarce am fit for your great plans : yet speak 

to me, 
Say one soft word and let me part forgiven." 

But Ida spoke not, rapt upon the child. 
Then Arac. " Ida— 'sdeath ! you blame the man ; 
You wrong yourselves — the woman is so hard 
Upon the woman. Come, a grace to me ! 
I am your warrior ; I and mine have fought 
Your battle: kiss her; take her hand, she weeps: 
'Sdeath I I would sooner fight thrice o'er than see it." 

But Ida spoke not, gazing on the ground, 
And reddening in the furrows of his chin. 
And moved beyond his custom, Gana said: 

" I've heard that there is iron in the blood, 
And I believe it. Not one word ? not one ? 
Whence drew you this steel temper? not from me, 
Not from your mother now a saint with saint!?. 
She said you had a heart — I heard her say it — 
' Our Ida has a heart '^ust ere she died — 
' But see that some one with authority 
Be near her still,' and I— I sought for one — 
All people said she had authority — 
The Lady Blanche : much profit ! Not one word ; 
No! tho' your father sues: see how yon stand 
Stiff as Lot's wife, and all the good knights maim'd, 
I trust that there is no one hurt to death. 
For your wild whim : and was it then for this. 
Was it for this we gave our palace up. 
Where we withdrew from summer heats and state, 
And had our wine and chess beneath the planes, 
And many a pleasant hour with her that's gone, 
Ere you were born to vex us ? Is it kind f 
Speak to her I say : is this not she of whom, 
When first she came, all flush'd you said to me 
Now had you got a friend of your own age, 
Now could you share your thought; now should 

men see 
Two women faster welded in one love 
Than pairs of wedlock; she you walk'd with, she 
You talk'd with, whole nights long, up in the tower, 
Of sine and arc, spheroid and azimuth. 
And right ascension. Heaven knows what ; and now 
A word, but one, one little kindly word. 
Not one to spare her : out upon you, flint 1 
You love nor her, nor me, nor any ; nay, 
You shame your mother's judgment too. Not one? 
You will not ? well — no heart have you, or such 
As fancies like the veiTnin in a nut 
Have fretted all to dust and bitterness." 
So said the small king moved beyond his wont. 

But Ida stood nor spoke, drain'd of her force 
By many a varying influence and so long. 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY. 



101 



Dowu thro' her limbs a drooping lauguor wept: 

Her hiead a little bent ; and on her mouth 

A doubtful smile dwelt like a clouded moon 

In a still water: then brake out my sire 

Lifting his grim head from ray wounds. " O you, 

Woman, whom we thought woman even now, 

And were half fool'd to let you tend our son, 

Because he might have wish'd it— but we see 

The accomplice of your madness unforgiven. 

And think that you might mix his draught with 

death, 
When your skies change again: the rodgher hand 
Is safer: on to the tents: take up the Prince." 

He rose, and while each ear was prick'd to attend 
A tempest, thro' the cloud that dimm'd her broke 
A genial warmth and light once more, and shone 
Thro' glittering drops on her sad friend. 

" Come hither, 

Psyche," she cried out, "embrace me, come. 
Quick while I melt; make a reconcilement sure 
With one that cannot keep her mind an hour: 
Come to the hollow heart they slander so ! 
Kiss and be friends, like children being chid ! 

1 seem no more : / want forgiveness too : 

I should have had to do with none but maids. 
That have no links with men. Ah false but dear. 
Dear traitor, too much loved, why ? — why ? Yet see 
Before these kings we embrace you yet once more 
With all forgiveness, all oblivion. 
And trust, not love, you less. 

And now, O Sire, 
Grant me your son, to nurse, to wait upon him, 
Like mine own brother. For my debt to him. 
This nightmare weight of gratitude, I know it; 
Taunt me no more: yourself and yours shall have 
Free adit ; we will scatter all our maids 
Till happier times each to her proper hearth: 
What use to keep them here now ? grant my prayer. 
Help, father, brother, help ; speak to the kii>g : 
Thaw this male uature to some touch of that 
Which kills me with myself, and drags rae down 
From my fist height to mob me up with all 
The soft and milky rabble of womankind. 
Poor weakling ev'n as they are." 

Passionate tears 
Follow'd: the king replied not: Cyril said: 
" Tour brother, Lady, — Florian, — ask for him 
Of your great head — for he is wounded too — 
That you may tend upon him with the prince." 
" Ay so," said Ida with a bitter smile, 
"Our laws are broken: let him enter too." 
Then Violet, she that sang the mournful song. 
And had a cousin tumbled on the plain, 
Petitiim'd too for him. "Ay so," she said, 
"I stagger in the stream: I cannot keep 
My heart an eddy from the brawling hour : 
We break our laws with ease, but let it be." 
"Ay so?" said Blanche: "Amazed ara I to hear 
Your Highness : but your Highness breaks with ease 
The law your Highness did not make : 'twas I. 
I had been wedded wile, I knew mankind. 
And block'd, them out ; but these men came to woo 
Your Highness— verily I think to win." 

So she, and turn'd askance a wintry eye : 
But Ida with a voice, that like a bell 
Toll'd by au earthquake in a trembling tower, 
liaug ruin, answer'd fall of grief and scorn. 

" Fling our doors wide ! all, all, not one, but all. 
Not only he, but by my mother's soul, 
Whatever man lies wounded, friend or foe, 
Shall enter, if he will. Let our girls flit, 
Till the storm die ! but had you stood by us. 
The roar that breaks the Pharos from his base 
Had left us rock. She fain would sting us too. 



But shall not. Pass, and mingle with your likes. 
We brook no further insult but are gone." 

She turn'd ; the very nape of her white neck 
Was rosed with indignation : but the Prince 
Her brother came ; the king her father charm'd 
Her wounded soul with words: nor did mine own 
Refuse her proffer, lastly gave his hand. 

Then us they lifted up, dead weights, and bare 
Straight to the doors: to them the doors gave way 
Groaning, and in the Vestal entry shriek'd 
The virgin marble under iron heels: 
And on they moved and gaiu'd the hall, and there 
Rested: but great the crush was, and each base, 
To left and right, of those tall columns drown'd 
In silken fluctuation and the swarm 
Of female whisperers : at the further end 
Was Ida by the throne, the two great cats 
Close by her, like supporters on a shield, 
Bow-back'd with fear: but in the centre stood 
The common men with rolling eyes ; amazed 
They glared upon the women, and aghast 
The women stared at these, all silent, save 
When armor clash'd or jingled, while the day, 
Descending, struck athwart the hall, and shot 
A flying splendor out of brass and steel. 
That o'er the statues leapt from head to head, 
Now fired an angry Pallas on the helm. 
Now set a wrathful Dian's moon on flame, 
And now and then an echo started up. 
And shuddering fled from room to room, and died 
Of fright in far apartments. 

Then the voice 
Of Ida sounded, issuing ordinance: 
And me they bore up the broad stairs, and thro' 
The long-laid galleries past a hundred doors 
To one deep chamber shut from sound, and due 
To languid limbs and sickness ; left me in it ; 
And others otherwhere they laid ; and all 
That afternoon a sound arose of hoof 
And chariot, many a maiden passing home 
Till happier times ; but some were left of those 
Held sagest, and the great lords out and in, 
From those two hosts that lay beside the walls, 
Walk'd at their will, and everything was changed. 



Ask me no more : the moon may draw the sea ; 
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the 

shape, 
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape ; 
But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee? 
Ask me no more. 

Ask me no more: what answer should I give? 
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye: 
Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die ! 

Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live ; 
Ask me no more. 

Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd: 
I strove against the stream and all in vain: 
Let the great river take me to the main : 

No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield ; 
Ask me no more. 

VIL 

So was their sanctuary violated. 

So their fair college turn'd to hospital; 

At first with all confusion : by and by 

Sweet order lived again with other laws : 

A kindlier influence reign'd; and everywhere 

Low voices with the ministering hand 

Huug round the sick : the maidens came, they talk'd, 

They sang, they read : till she not fair, began 

To gather light, and she that was, became 

Her former beauty treble; and to and fro 



102 



THE PRINCESS : A MEDLEY. 



With books, with flowers, with Angel ofllces. 
Like creatures native unto gracious act, 
And in their own clear element, they moved. 

But sadness on the soul of Ida fell, 
And hatred of her weakness, blent with shame. 
Old studies fail'd ; seldom she spoke ; but oft 
Clorab to the roofs, and gazed alone for hours 
On that disastrous leaguer, swarms of men 
Darkening her female lield : void was her use ; 
And she as one that climbs a peak to gaze 
O'er land and main, and sees a great black cloud 
Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night. 
Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore. 
And suck the blinding splendor from the sand, 
And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarn 
Expunge the world: so fared she gazing there; 
So blacken'd all her world in secret, blank 
And waste it seem'd and vain ; till down she came, 
And found fair peace once more among the sick. 

And twilight dawn'd ; and morn by morn the lark 
Shot up and shrill'd in flickering gyres, but I 
Lay silent in the muQled cage of life : 
And twilight gloom'd ; and broader-grown the bowers 
Drew the great night into themselves, and Heaven, 
Star after star, arose and fell ; but I, 
Deeper than those weird doubts could reach me, lay 
Quite sunder'd from the moving Universe, 
Nor knew what eye was on me, nor the hand 
That nursed me, more than infants in their sleep. 

But Psyche tended Florian: with her oft 
Melissa came; for Blanche had gone, but left 
Her child among us, willing she should keep 
Court-favor: here and there the small bright head, 
A light of healing glanced about the couch. 
Or thro' the parted silks the tender face 
Peep'd, shining in upon the wounded man 
With blush and smile, a medicine in themselves 
To wile the length from languorous hours, and draw 
The sting from pain ; nor seem'd it strange that soon 
He rose up whole, and those fair charities 
Join'd at her side; nor stranger seem'd that hearts 
So gentle, so employ'd, should close in love. 
Than when two dew-drops on the petal shake 
To the same sweet air, and tremble deeper down. 
And slip at once all-fragrant into one. 

Less prosperously the second suit obtain'd 
At first with Psyche. Not though Blanche had sworn 
That after that dark night among the fields. 
She needs must wed him for her own good name ; 
Not tho' he built upon the babe restored ; 
Nor tho' she liked him, yielded she, but fear'd 
To incense the Head once more ; till on a day 
When Cyril pleaded, Ida came behind 
Seen but of Psyche : on her foot she hung 
A moment, and she heard, at which her foce 
A little flush'd, and she past on ; but each 
Assumed from thence, a half-consent involved 
In stillness, plighted troth, and were at peace. 

Nor only these : Love in the sacred halls 
Held carnival at will, and flying struck 
With showers of random sweet on maid and man. 
Nor did her father cease to press my claim. 
Nor did mine own now reconciled; nor yet 
Did those twin brothers, risen again and whole ; 
Nor Arac, satiate with his victory. 

But I lay still, and with me oft she sat : 
Then came a change ; for sometimes I would catch 
Her hand in wild delirium, gripe it hard, 
And fling it like a viper off", and shriek 
" You are not Ida ;" clasp it once again, 
And call her Ida, tho' I knew her not, 
And call her sweet, as if in irony. 



And call her hard and cold which seem'd a truth : 
And still she fear'd that I should lose my mind, 
And often she believed that I should die: 
Till out of long frustration of her care. 
And pensive tendance in the all-weary noons. 
And watches in the dead, the dark, when clocks 
Throbb'd thunder thro' the palace floors, or call'd 
On flying Time from all their silver tongues — 
And out of memories of her kindlier days. 
And sidelong glances at my father's grief, 
And at the happy lovers heart in heart — 
And out of hauntings of my spoken love, 
And lonely listenings to my mutter'd dream, 
And often feeling of the helpless hands. 
And wordless broodiugs on the wasted cheek — 
From all a closer interest flourish'd up. 
Tenderness touch by touch, and last, to these. 
Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears 
By some cold morning glacier; frail at first 
And feeble, all unconscious of itself, 
But such as gather'd color day by day. 

Last I woke sane, but wellnigh close to death 
For weakness: it was evening: silent light 
Slept on the painted walls, wherein were wrought 
Two grand designs: for on one side arose 
The women up in wild revolt, and storm'd 
At the Oppian law. Titanic shapes, they cramm'd 
The forum, and half-crush'd among the rest 
A dwarflike Cato cower'd. On the other side 
Hortensia spoke against the tax ; behind, 
A train of dames : by axe and eagle sat. 
With all their foreheads drawn in Roman scowls, 
And half the wolfs-milk curdled in their veins, . 
The fierce triumvirs ; and before them paused 
Hortensia, pleading : angry was her face. 

I saw the forms : I knew not where I was : 
They did but seem as hollow shows; nor more 
Sweet Ida : palm to palm she sat : the dew 
Dwelt in her eyes, and softer all her shape 
And rounder show'd: I moved: I sigh'd: a touch 
Came round my wrist, and tears upon my hand: 
Then all for languor and self-pity ran 
Mine down my face, and with what life I had, 
And like a flower that cannot all unfold. 
So drench'd it is with tempest, to the sun. 
Yet, as it may, turns toward him, I on her 
Fixt my faint eyes, and utter'd whisperingly : 

"If you be, what I think you, some sweet dream, 
I would but ask you to fulfil yourself: 
But if you be that Ida whom I knew, 
I ask you nothing : only, if a dream. 
Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night.. 
Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere 1 die." 

I could no more, but lay like one in trance. 
That hears his burial talk'd of by his friends, 
And cannot speak, nor move, nor make one sign. 
But lies and dreads his doom. She turn'd; s-he 

paused ; 
She stoop'd; and out of languor leapt a cry; 
Leapt fiery Passion from the brinks of- death; 
And I believed that in the living world 
My spirit closed with Ida's at the lips ; 
Till back I fell, and from mine arms she rof e 
Glowing all over noble shame ; and all 
Her falser self slipt from her like a robe. 
And left her woman, lovelier in her mood 
Than in her mould that other, when she came 
From barren deeps to conquer all with love : 
And down the streaming crystal dropt; and she 
Far-fleeted by the purple island-sides. 
Naked, a double light in air and wave. 
To meet her Graces, where they deck'd her out 
For worship without end ; nor end of mine. 
Stateliest, for thee ! but mute she glided forth. 



THE PRINCESS : A MEDLEY. 



103 



Nor glanced behind her, and I sank and slept, 
Fill'd thro' and thro' with Love, a happy sleep. 

Deep in the night I woke : she, near me, held 
A volume of the Toets of her laud : 
There to herself, all in low tones, she read. 

"Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white; 
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk ; 
Nor wiuks the gold fln in the porphyry font: 
The firefly wakeus : waken thou with me. 

"Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost, 
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. 

" Now lies the Earth all Danac to the stars, 
And all thy heart lies open unto me. 

" Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves 
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. 

" Now folds the lily all her sweetness up. 
And slips into the bosom of the lake : 
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip 
Into my bosom and be lost iu me." 

I heard her turn the page ; she found a small 
Sweet Idyl, and once more, as low, she read : 

" Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain 
height : 
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang). 
In height and cold, the splendor of the hills ? 
But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease 
To glide a sunbeam by' the blasted Pine, 
. To sit a star upon the sparkling spire ; 
And come, for Love is of the valley, come. 
For Love is of the valley, come thou down 
And find him ; by the happy threshold, he. 
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize. 
Or red with spirted purple of the vats. 
Or foxlike in the vine ; nor cares to walk 
With Death and Moj'n'iug on the Silver Horns, 
Nor wilt thou snare him iu the white ravine, 
Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice, 
That huddling slant iu furrow-cloven falls 
To roll the torrent out of dusky doors: 
But follow ; let the torrent dance thee down 
To find him in the valley; let the wild 
Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave 
The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill 
Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, 
That like a broken purpose waste in air: 
So waste not thou ; but come ; for all the vales 
Await thee ; azure pillars of the hearth 
Arise to thee ; the children call, and I 
Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound, 
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet ; 
Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, 
The moan of doves in immemorial elms, 
And murmuring of innumerable bees." 

So she low-toned ; while with shut eyes T lay 
Listening ; then look'd. Pale was the perfect face ; 
The bosom with long sighs labor'd ; and meek 
Seem'd the full lips, and mild the luminous eyes, 
And the voice trembled and the hand. She said 
Brokenly, that she knew it, she had fail'd 
In sweet humility ; had fail'd in all ; 
That all her labor was but as a block 
Left iu the quarry; but she still were loath. 
She still were loath to yield herself to one, 
That wholly scorn'd to help their equal rights 
Against the sons of men, and barbarous laws. 
She pray'd me not to judge their cause from her 
That wrong'd it, sought far less for truth than 

power 
In knowledge-, something wild within her breast. 



A greater than all knowledge, beat her down. 
And she had nurs'd me there from week to week ; 
Much had she learnt iu little time. In part 
It was ill counsel had misled the girl 
To vex true hearts : yet was she but a girl— 
"Ah fool, and made myself a Queen of farce ! 
When comes another such? never, I think 
Till the Sun drop dead from the signs." 

Her voice 
Choked, and her forehead sank upon her hands, 
And her great heart through all the fuultful P .st. 
Went sorrowing in a pause I dared not break ; 
Till notice of a change iu the dark world 
Was lisp'd about the acacias, and a bird. 
That early woke to feed her little ones. 
Sent from a dewy breast a cry for light : 
She moved, and at her feet the volume fell. 

"Blame not thyself too much," I said, "nor blame 
Too much the sons of men and barbarous laws ; 
These were the rough ways of the world till now. 
Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know 
The woman's cause is man's : they rise or sink 
Together, dwarf 'd or godlike, bond or free: 
For she that out of Lethe scales with man 
The shining steps of Nature, shares with man 
His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal, 
Stays all the fair young planet in her hands— 
If she be small, slighl-natured, miserable, 
How shall men grow ? but work no more aloue ! 
Our place is much : as far as iu us lies 
We two will serve them both in aiding her— 
Will clear away the parasitic forms 
That seem to keep her up but drag her down — 
Will leave her space to burgeon out of all 
Within her — let her make herself her own 
To give or keep, to live and learn and be 
All that not harms distinctive womanhood. 
For woman is not undevelopt man. 
But diverse: could we make her as the man. 
Sweet love were slain : his dearest bond is this. 
Not like to like, but like in difi"erence. 
Yet in the long years liker must they grow; 
The man be more of woman, she of man ; 
He gain in sweetness and in moral height. 
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world ; 
She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care. 
Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind; 
Till at the last she set herself to man. 
Like perfect music unto noble words ; 
And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, 
Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their powers, 
Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, 
Self-reverent each and reverencing each, 
Distinct in individualities, 
But like each other ev'n as those who love. 
Then comes the statelier Eden back to men: 
Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and 

calm: 
Then springs the crowning race of humankind. 
May these things be 1" 

Sighing she spoke, "I fear 
They will not." 

"Dear, but let us type them now 
In our own lives, and this proud watchword rest 
Of equal ; seeing either sex alone 
Is half itself, and in true marriage lies 
Nor equal, nor unequal : each fulfils 
Defect in each, and always thought in thought, 
Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow. 
The single pure and perfect animal, 
The two-cell'd heart beating, with one full stroke. 
Life." 

And again sighing she spoke: "A dream 
That once was mine ! what woman taught you this ?" 

"Alone," I said, "from earlier than I know. 
Immersed in rich foreshadowings of the world, 



104 



THE PRINCESS : A MEDLEY. 



I loved the woman : he, that doth not, lives 

A drowning life, besotted in sweet self. 

Or pines in sad experience worse than death, 

Or keeps his wiug'd afl'ections dipt with crime : 

Yet was there one thro' whom I loved her, one 

Not learned, save in gracious household ways, 

Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants. 

No Angel, but a dearer being, all dipt 

In Angel instincts, breathing Paradise, 

Interpreter between the Gods and men. 

Who look'd all native to her place, and yet 

On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphere 

Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce 

Sway'd to her from their orbits as they moved. 

And girded her with music. Happy he 

With such a mother ! faith in womankind 

Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high 

Comes easy to him, and tho' he trip and fall 

He shall not blind his soul with clay." 

"But I," 
Said Ida, tremulously, '' so all unlike — 
It seems you love to cheat yourself with words : 
This mother is your model. I have heard 
Of your strange doubts : they well might be : I 

seem 
A mockery to my own self. Never, Prince ; 
You cannot love me." 

" Nay but thee," I said, 
"From yearlong poring on thy pictured eyes. 
Ere seen I loved, and loved thee seen, and saw 
Thee woman thro' the crust of iron moods 
That mask'd thee from men's reverence up, and 

forced 
Sweet love on pranks of saucy boyhood : now, 
Giv'n back to life, to life indeed, thro' thee, 
Indeed I love ; the new day comes, the light 
Dearer for night, as dearer thou for faults 
Lived over : lift thine eyes ; my doubts are dead. 
My haunting sense of hollow shows ; the change, 
This truthful change in thee has kill'd it. Dear, 
Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine. 
Like yonder morning on the blind half-world ; 
Approach and fear not ; breathe upon my brows ; 
In that fine air I tremble, all the past 
Melts mist-Jike into this bright hour, and this 
Is morn to more, and all the rich to-come 
Reels, as the golden Autumn woodland reels 
Athwart the smoke of burning weeds. Forgive me, 
I waste my heart in signs : let be. My bride, 
My wife, my life. O we will walk this world. 
Yoked in all exercise of noble end. 
And so thro- those dark gates across the wild 
That no man knows. Indeed I love thee : come. 
Yield thyself up • my hopes and thine are one : 
Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself; 
Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me." 



CONCLUSION. 

So closed our tale, of which I give you all 

The random scheme as wildly as it rose : 

The words are mostly mine ; for when we ceased 

There came a minute's pause, and Walter said, 

"I wish she had not yielded!" then to me, 

" What, if you drest it up poetically !" ■ 

So pray'd the men, the women : I gave assent : 

Yet how to bind the scatter'd scheme of seven 

Together in one sheaf? What style could suit? 

The men required that I should give throughout 

The sort of mock-heroic gigantesque, 

With which we banter'd little Lilia first: 

The women— and perhaps they felt their power. 

For something in the ballads which they sang. 

Or in their silent influence as they sat, 

Had ever seem'd to wrestle with burlesqtie, 

And drove us, last, to quite a solemn close — 

They hated banter, wish'd for something real, 



j A gallant flght, a noble princess — why 
Not make her true-heroic — true-sublime ? 
Or all, they said, as earnest as the close ? 
Which yet with such a framework scarce could be. 
Then rose a little feud betwixt the two. 
Betwixt the mockers and the realists ; 
And I, betwixt them both, to please them both. 
And yet to give the story as it rose, 
I moved as in a strange diagonal. 
And maybe neither pleased myself nor them. 

But Lilia pleased me, for she took no part 
In our dispute : the sequel of the tale 
Had touch'd her ; and she sat, she pluck'd the gras?. 
She flung it from her, thinking: last, she flxt 
A showery glance upon her auut, and said, 
"You— tell us what we are" who might have told, 
For she was cramm'd with theories out of books, 
But that there rose a shout : the gates were closed 
At sunset, and the crowd were swarming now, 
To take their leave, about the garden rails. 

So I and some went out to these: we climb'd 
The slope to Vivian-place, and turning saw 
The happy valleys, half in light, and half 
Far-shadowing from the west, a land of peace ; 
Gray halls alone among the massive groves; 
Trim hamlets ; here and there a rustic tower 
Half-lost in belts of hop and breadths of wheat ; 
The shimmering glimpses of a stream ; the seas ; 
A red sail, or a white ; and far beyond. 
Imagined more than seen, the skirts of France. 

" Look there, a garden !" said my college friend, 
The Tory member's elder son, " and there ! 
God bless the narrow sea which keeps her off, 
And keeps our Britain, whole within herself, 
A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled — 
Some sense of duty, something of a faith. 
Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made. 
Some patient force to change them when we will, 
Some civic manhood firm agaiijst the crowd — 
Bat yonder, whiflf! there comes a sudden heat, 
The gravest citizen seems to lose his head, 
The king is scared, the soldier will not flght. 
The little boys begin to shoot and stab, 
A kingdom topples over with a shriek 
Like an old woman, and down rolls the world 
In mock heroics stranger than our own ; 
Revolts, republics, revolutions, most 
No graver than a school-boys' barring out; , 
Too comic for the solemn things they are. 
Too solemn for the comic touches in them, 
Like our wild Princess with as wise a dream 
As some of theirs— God bless the narrow seas '. 
I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad." 

"Have patience," I replied, "ourselves are full 
Of social wrong ; and maybe wildest dreams 
Are but the needful preludes of the truth : 
For me, the genial day, the happy crowd, 
The sport half-science, fill me with a faith. 
This fine old world of ours is but a child 
Yet in the go-cart. Patience ! Give it time 
To learn its limbs: there is a hand that guides." 

In such discourse we gain'd the garden rails, 
And there we saw Sir Walter where he stood. 
Before a tower of crimson holly-oaks. 
Among six boys, head under head, and look'd 
No little lily-handed Baronet he, 
A great broad-shonlder'd genial Englishman, 
A lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep, 
A raiser of huge melons and of pine, 
A patron of some thirty charities, 
A pamphleteer on guano and on grain, 
A quarter-sessions chairman, abler none ; 



IN MEMORIAM. 



105 



Pair-hair'd and redder than a windy morn; 
Now shaking hands with him, now him, of those 
That stood the nearest — now address'd to speech — 
Who spoke few words and pithy, such as closed 
Welcome, farewell, and welcome for the year 
To follow : a shout rose again, and made 
The long Hue of the approaching rookery swerve 
From the elms, and shook the branches of the deei- 
From slope to slope thro' distant ferns, and rang 
Ijeyond the bourn of sunset ; O, a shout 
More joyful than the city-roar that hails 
Premier or king ! Why should not these great Sirs 
Give up their parks some dozen times a year 
To let the people breathe ? So thrice they cried, 
I likewise, and in groups they stream'd away. 



But we went back to the Abbey, and sat on. 
So much the gathering darkness charm'd: we sat 
But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie, 
Perchance upon the futurg man : the walls 
Blacken'd about us, bats wheel'd, and owls whoop'd, 
Aud gradually the powers of the night. 
That range above the region of the wind, 
Deepening the courts of twilight broke them up 
Thro' all the silent spaces of the worlds, 
Beyond all thought into the Heaven of Heavens. 

Last little Lilia, rising quietly. 
Disrobed the glimmering statue of Sir Kalph 
From those rich silks, and home well-pleased we 
went. 



IN MEMORIAM. 



Strong Son of God, immortal Love, 
Whom we, that have not seen thy face, 
By faith, aud faith alone, embrace. 

Believing where we cannot prove ; 

Thine are these orbs of light and shade ; 

Thou madest life- in man and brute ; 

Thou madest Death ; and lo, thy foot 
Is on the skull which thou hast made. 

Thon wilt not leave us in the dust: 
Thou madest man, he knows not why ; 
He thinks he was not made to die ; 

And thou hast made him : thou art just. 

Thou seemest human and divine. 
The highest, holiest manhood, thou: 
Our wills are ours, we know not how; 

Our wills are ours, to make them thine. 

Our little systems have their day ; 
They have their day aud cease to be: 
They are but broken lights of thee. 

And thou, O Lord, art more thau they. 

We have but faith : we cannot know ; 

For knowledge is of things we see ; 

Aud yet we trust it comes from thee, 
A beam in darkness : let it grow. 

Let knowledge grow from more to more. 
But more of reverence in us dwell ; 
That mind and soul according well, 

May make one music as before, 

But vaster. We are fools aud slight ; 
We mock thee when we do not fear: 
But help thy foolish ones to bear; 

Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light. 

Forgive what seem'd my sin in me ; 

What seem'd my worth since I began ; 

For merit lives from man to man, 
And not from man, O Lord, to thee. 

Forgive my grief for one removed, 
Thy creature, whom I found so fair. 
I trust he lives in thee, aud there 

I find him worthier to be loved. 

Forgive these wild and wandering cries, 
Confusions of a wasted youth : 
Forgive them where they fail in truth, 

And in thy wisdom make me wise. 
1S49. 



IN MEMORIAM. 
A. H. H. 

OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII. 
I. 

I UELD it truth, with him who sings 
To one clear harp in divers tones, 
That men may rise on stepping-stones 

Of their dead selves to higher things. 

But who shall so forecast the years. 
And And in loss a gain to mutch? 
Or reach a hand thro' time to catch 

The far-oft' interest of tears ? 

Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd. 
Let darkness keep her raven gloss: 
Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss. 

To dauce with death, to beat the ground, 

Than that the victor Hours should scorn 
The long result of love, and boast, 
"Behold the man that loved and lost 

But all he was is overworn." 

IL 

Old Yew, which graspest at the stones 
That name the underlying dead. 
Thy fibres net the dreamless head. 

Thy roots are wrapt about the bones. 

The seasons bring the flower again. 
And bring the firstling to the flock ; 
And in the dusk of thee, the clock 

Beats out the little lives of men. 

O not for thee the glow, the bloom. 
Who changest not in any gale. 
Nor branding summer suns avail 

To touch thy thousand years of gloom : 

And gazing on thee, sullen tree, 
Sick for thy stubborn hardihood, 
I seem to fail from out my blood 

And grow incorporate into thee. 

III. 

O SORROW, cruel fellowship, 
O Priestess in the vaults of Death, 
O sweet and bitter in a breath, 

What whispers from thy lying lip ? 



10(> 



m MEMORIAM. 



"The stars," she whispers, "blindly run; 

A web is wov'u across the sky; 

From out waste places comes a cry, 
And murmurs from the dying sun .- 

"And all the phantom, Nature, stands,— 
With all the music in her tone, 
A hollow echo of my own, — 

A hollow form with empty hands." 

And shall I take a thing so blind, 
Embrace her as my natural good ; 
Or crush her, like a vice of blood. 

Upon the threshold of the mind ? 

IV. 

To Sleep I give my powers a^ay; 

My will is bondsman to the dark; 

I git vrithin a helmless bark. 
And with my heart I muse and say: 

O heart, how fares it with thee now. 
That thou shouldst fail from thy desire, 
Wfio scarcely darest to inquire 

"What is it makes me beat so low?" 

Something it is which thou hast lost. 
Some pleasure from thine early years. 
Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears. 

That grief hath shaken into frost ! 

Such clouds of nameless trouble cross 
All night below the darken'd eyes ; 
With morning wakes the will, and cries, 

"Thou Shalt not be the fool of loss." 



I SOMETIMES hold it half a sin 
To put in words the grief I feel ; 
For words, like Nature, half reveal 

And half conceal the Soul within. 

But, for the unquiet heart and brain, 
A use in measured language lies; 
The sad mechanic exercise. 

Like dull narcotics, numbing pain. 

In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er. 
Like coarsest clothes against the cold ; 
But that large grief which these enfold 

Is given in outline and no more. 

VI. 

One wi-ites, that "Other friends remain," 
That "Loss is common to the race," — 
And common is the commonplace, 

And vacant chaff well meant for grain. 

That loss is common would not make 
My own less bitter, rather more : 
Too common 1 Never morning wore 

To evening, but some heart did break. 

O father, wheresoe'er thou be, 
Who pledgest now thy gallant son ; 
A shot, ere half thy draught be done, 

Hath still'd the life that beat from thee. 

O mother, praying God will save 
Thy sailor,— while thy head is bow'd, 
His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud 

Drops in his vast and wandering grave. 

Ye know no more than I who wrought 
At that last hour to please him well ; 
Who mused on all I had to tell, 

And something written, something thought: 



Expecting still his advent home: 
And ever met him on his way 
With wishes, thinking, here to-day, 

Or here to-morrow will he come. 

O somewhere, meek unconscious dove, 
That sittest ranging golden hair ; 
And giad to find thyself so fair. 

Poor child, that waitest for thy love ! 

For now her father's chimney glows 

In expectation of a guest ; 

And thinking "This will please him be;;!,' 
She takes a riband or a rose; 

For he will see them on to-night ; 

And with the thought her color burns ; 

And, having left the glass, she turns 
Once more to set a ringlet right; 

And, ev'n when she turn'd, the curse 
Had fallen, and her future lord 
Was drown' d in passing thro' the ford. 

Or kill'd in falling from his horse. 

O what to her shall be the end? 

And what to me remains of good ? 

To her, perpetual maidenhood. 
And unto me no second friend. 

VII. 

Dakk house, by which once more I stand 
Here in the long unlovely street. 
Doors, where my heart was used to beat 

So quickly, waiting for a hand, 

A hand that can be clasp'd no more, — 
Behold me, for I cannot sleep. 
And like a guilty thing I creep 

At earliest morning to the door. 

He is not here ; but far away 
The noise of life begins again. 
And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain 

On the bald street breaks the blank day. 

VIII. 

A HAPPY lover who has come 
To look on her that loves him well. 
Who 'lights and rings the gateway bell, 

And learns her gone and far from home: 

He saddens, all the magic light 
Dies off at once from bower and hall. 
And all the place is dark, and all 

The chambers emptied of delight : 

So find I every pleasant spot 
In which we two were wont to meet, 
The field, the chamber, and the street. 

For all is dark where thou art not. 

Yet as that other, wandering there 
In those deserted walks, may find 
A flower beat with rain and wind, 

Which once she foster'd up with care ; 

So seems it in my deep regret, 

my forsaken heart, with thee 
And this poor flower of poesy 

Which little cared for fades not yet. 

But since it pleased a vanish'd eye, 

1 go to plant it on his tomb, 
That if it can it there may bloom, 

Or dying, there at least may die. 



IN MEMORIAM. 



107 



IX. 

Faie ship, that from the Italian shore 
Sailest the placid ocean-plains 
With my lost Arthur's loved remains, 

Spread thy full wings, and waft him o'er. 

So draw him home to those that mouru 
In vain ; a favorable speed 
Ruffle thy mirror'd mast, and lead 

Thro' prosperous floods his holy urn. 

All night no ruder air perplex 
Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright 
As our pure love, thro' early light 

Shall glimmer on the dewy decks. 

Sphere all your lights around, above ; 

Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow ; 

Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now, 
My friend, the brother of my love ; 

My Arthur, whom I shall not see 
Till all my widow'd race be run ; 
Dear as the mother to the son. 

More than my brothers are to me. 



I HEAR the noise about thy keel ; 

I hear the bell struck in the night; 

I se€ the cabin-window bright; 
I see the sailor at the wheel. 

Thou bringest the sailor to his wife. 
And travell'd men from foreign lands; 
And letters unto trembling hands ; 

And, thy dark freight, a vanish'd life. 

So bring him : we have idle dreams : 
This look of quiet flatters thus 
Our home-bred fancies : O to us, 

The fools of habit, sweeter seems 

To rest beneath the clover sod. 
That takes the sunshine and the rains, 
Or where the kneeling hamlet drains 

The chalice of the grapes of God ; 

Than if with thee the roaring wells 
Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine ; 
And hands so often clasp' d in mine 

Should toss with tangle and with shells. 

XI. 

Calm is the morn without a sound, 

Calm as to suit a calmer grief, 

And only thro' the faded leaf 
The chestnut pattering to the ground : 

Calm and deep peace on this high wold 
And on these dews that drench the furze, 
And all the silvery gossamers 

That twinkle into green and gold: 

Calm and still light on yon great plain 
That sweeps with all its autumn bowers, 
And crowded farms and lessening towers, 

To mingle with the bounding main : 

Calm and deep peace in this wide air, 
These leaves that redden to the fall ; 
And in my heart, if calm at all, 

If any calm, a calm despair : 

Calm on the seas, and silver sleep. 
And waves that sway themselves in rest. 
And dead calm in that noble breast 

Which heaves but with the heaving deep. 



XII. 

Lo, as a dove when up she springs 
To bear thro' Heaven a tale of woe. 
Some dolorous message knit below 

The wild pulsation of her wings ; 

Like her I go; I cannot stay; 
I leave this mortal ark behind, 
A weight of nerves without a mind, 

And leave the clifi's, and haste away 

O'er ocean-mirrors rounded large, 
And reach the glow of southern skies, 
And see the sails at distance rise, 

And linger weeping on the marge, 

And saying, "Comes he thus, my friend? 

Is this the end of all my care?" 

And circle moaning in the air : 
"Is this the end? Is this the end?" 

And forward dart again, and play 
About the prow, and back return 
To where the body sits, and learn, 

That I have been an hour away. 

XIII. 

Teaks of the widower, when he sees 
A late-lost form that sleep reveals. 
And moves his doubtful arms, and feels 

Iler place is empty, fall like these ; 

Which weep a loss forever new, 
A void where heart on heart reposed ; 
And, where warm hands have prest and clos'd, 

Silence, till I be silent too. 

Which weep the comrade of my choice, 
An awful thought, a life removed. 
The human-hearted man I loved, 

A Spirit, not a breathing voice. 

Come Time, and teach me, many years, 

I do not suffer in a dream ; 

For now so strange do these things seem, 
Mine eyes have leisure for their tears ; 

My fancies time to rise on wing. 
And glance about the approaching sails. 
As tho' they brought but merchants' bales. 

And not the burthen that they bring. 

XIV. 

If one should bring me this report. 
That thou hadst touch'd the land to-day, 
And I went down unto the quay. 

And found thee lying in the port; 

And standing, mufiled round with woe, 
Should see thy passengers in rank 
Come stepping lightly down the plank. 

And beckoning unto those they know; 

And if along with these should come 

The man I held as half-divine ; 

Should strike a sudden hand in mine. 
And ask a thousand things of home ; 

And I should tell him all my pain. 
And how my life had droop'd of late. 
And he should sorrow o'er my state 

And marvel what possess'd my brain ; 

And I perceived no tonch of change, 
No hint of death in all his frame, 
But found him all in all the same, 

I should iiot feel it to be strange. 



108 



IN MEMORIAM. 



XV. 

To-night the winds begin to rise 
And roar from yonder dropping day : 
The last red leaf is whirl'd away, 

The rooke are blown about the skies ; 

The forest crack'd, the waters curl'd, 

The cattle huddled on the lea ; 

Aud wildly dash'd on tower and tree 
The sunbeam strikes along the world: 

And but for fancies, which aver 
That all thy motions gently pass 
Athwart a plane of molten glass, 

I scarce could brook the strain and stir 

That makes the barren branches loud ; 
And but for fear it is not so, 
The wild unrest that lives in woe 

Would dote aud pore on yonder cloud 

That rises upward always higher. 
And onward drags a laboring breast, 
And topples round the dreary west, 

A looming bastion fringed with fire. 

XVI. 

What words are these have fall'n from me ? 

Can calm despair and wild unrest 

Be tenants of a single breast. 
Or sorrow such a changeling be? 

Or doth she only seem to take 
The touch of change in calm or storm ; 
But knows no more of transient form 

In her deep self, than some dead lake 

That holds the shadow of a lark 
Hung in the shadow of a heaven ? 
Or has the shock, so harshly given. 

Confused me like the unhappy bark 

That strikes by night a craggy shelf, 
Aud staggers blindly ere she sink? 
And stunn'd me from my power to think 

And all my knowledge of myself; 

And made me that delirious man 
Whose fancy fuses old and new. 
And flashes into false aud true, 

And mingles all without a plan? 

XVII. 

TnoTi comest, much wept for : such a breeze 
Compell'd thy cauTas, and ray prayer 
Was as the whisper of an air 

To breathe thee over lonely seas. 

For I in spirit saw thee move 
Thro' circles of the bounding sky. 
Week after week : the days go by : 

Come quick, thou briugest all I love. 

Henceforth, wherever thou may'st roam. 
My blessing, like a line of light. 
Is on the waters day aud night. 

And like a beacon guards thee home. 

So may whatever tempest mars 
Mid-ocean spare thee, sacred bark ; 
And balmy drops in summer dark 

Slide from the bosom of the stars. 

So kind an office hath been done. 
Such precious relics brought by thee ; 
The dust of him I shall not see 

Till all my widow'd race be run. 



XVIII. 

'T IS well ; 't is something ; we may stand 
Where he in English earth is laicl. 
And from his ashes may be made 

The violet of his native laud. 

'T is little : but it looks in truth 
As if the quiet bones were blest 
Among familiar names to rest 

And in the places of his youth. 

Come then, pure hands, and bear the head 
That sleeps or wears the mask of sleep. 
And come, whatever loves to weep. 

And hear the ritual of the dead. 

Ah yet, ev'n yet, if this might be, 
I, falling on his faithful heart, 
Would breathing through his lips impart 

The life that almost dies in me; 

That dies not, but endures with pain. 
And slowly forms the firmer mind. 
Treasuring the look it cannot find. 

The words that are not heard again. 

XIX. 

The Danube to the Severn gave 
The darken'd heart that beat no more : 
They laid him by the pleasant shore, 

Aud iu the hearing of the wave. 

There twice a day the Severn fills ; 
The salt sea-water passes by. 
And hushes half the babbling Wye, 

And makes a silence iu the hills. 

The Wye is hush'd nor moved along. 
And hush'd my deepest grief of all, 
When fill'd with tears that cannot fall, 

I brim with sorrow drowning song. 

The tide flows down, the wave again 

Is vocal in its wooded walls; 

My deeper anguish also falls, 
Aud I can speak a little then. 

XX. 

The lesser griefs that may be said. 
That breathe a thousand tender vows, 
Are but as servants in a house 

Where lies the master newly dead; 

Who speak their feeling as it is. 
And weep the fulness from the mind: 
"It will be hard," they say, "to find 

Another service such as this." , 

My lighter moods are like to these, 
That out of words a comfort win ; 
But there are other griefs within, 

And tears that at their fountain freeze : 

For by the hearth the children sit 
Cold in that atmosphere of Death, 
And scarce endure to draw the breath. 

Or like to noiseless phantoms flit: 

But open converse is there none, 
•So much the vital spirits sink 
To see the vacant chair, and think, 
"How good ! how kind! and he is gone." 

XXI. 

I SING to him that rests below, 
Aud, since the grasses round me wave, 
I take the grasses of the grave, 

And make them pipes whereon to blow. 



IN MEMORIAM. 



109 



The traveller hears me now and then, 
And sometimes harshly will he speali : 
" This fellow would make weakness weak, 

And melt the waxen hearts of men." 

Another answers, "Let him be. 
He loves to make parade of pain. 
That with his piping he may gain 

The praise that comes to constancy." 

A third is wroth, "Is this an hour 
For private sorrow's barren song, 
When more and more the people throng 

The chairs and thrones of civil power? 

"A time to sicken and to swoon, 
When Science reaches forth her arms 
To feel from world to world, and charms 

Her secret from the latest moon?"' 

Behold, ye speak an idle thing: • 

Ye never Ituew the sacred dust : 

I do but sing because I must. 
And pipe but as the linnets sing : 

And one is glad ; her note is gay. 
For now her little ones have ranged ; 
And one is sad: her note is changed, 

Because her brood is stol'u away. 

XXII. 

The path by which we twain did go. 
Which led by tracts that pleased us well, 
Thro' four sweet years arose and fell. 

From flower to flower, from snow to snow: 

And we with singing cheer'd the way. 
And crown'd with all the season lent. 
From April on to April went. 

And glad at heart from May to May : 

But where the path we walk'd began 
To slant the fifth autumnal slope. 
As we descended, follo\^g Hope, 

There sat the Shadow fear'd of man ; 

Who broke our fair companionship. 
And spread his mantle dark and cold. 
And wrapt thee formless in the fold. 

And duU'd the murmur on thy lip, 

And bore thee where I could not see 
Nor follow, tho' I walk in haste, 
And think that somewhere in the waste 

The Shadow sits and waits for me. 

XXIII. 

Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut, 

Or breaking into song by fits. 

Alone, alone, to where he sits, 
The Shadow cloak'd from head to foot. 

Who keeps the keys of all the creeds, 
I wander, often falling lame, 
And looking back to whence I came. 

Or on to where the pathway leads ; 

And crying, "How changed from where it ran 
Thro' lands where not a leaf was dumb; 
But all the lavish hills would hum 

The murmur of a happy Pan : 

"When each by turns was guide to each. 
And Fancy light from Fancy caught, 
And Thought leapt out to wed with Thou^chi 

Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech ; 



" And all we met was fair and good. 
And all was good that Time could bring, 
And all the secret of the Spring- 
Moved in the chambers of the blood; 

"And many an old philosophy 
On Argive heights divinely sang. 
And round us all the thicket rang 

To many a flute of Arcady." 

XXIV. 

And was the day of my delight 

As sure and perfect as I say ? 

The very source and font of Day 
Is dash'd with wandering isles of night. 

If all was good and fair we met. 
This earth had been the Paradise 
It never look'd to human eyes 

Since Adam left his garden yet. 

And is it that the haze of grief 
Makes former gladness loom so f^reat? 
The lowness of the present state, 

That sets the past in this relief? 

Or that the past will always win 

A glory from its being far; 

And orb into the perfect star 
We saw not, when we moved therein ? 

XXV. 

I KNOW that this was Life, — the track 
Whereon with equal feet we fared : 
And then, as now, the day prepared 

The daily burden for the back. 

But this it was that made me move 
As light as carrier-birds in air ; 
I loved the weight I had to bear. 

Because it needed help of love ; 

Nor could I weary, heart or limb. 
When mighty Love would cleave in twain 
The lading of a single pain. 

And part it, giving half to him. 

XXVL 

Still onward winds the dreary way ; 
I with it : for I long to prove 
No lapse of moons can canker Love, 

Whatever flclde tongues may say. 

And if that eye which watches guilt 
And goodness, and hath power to pcc , 
Within the green the moulder'd tree. 

And towers fall'n as soon as built, — 

O, if indeed that eye foresee 
' Or see (in Him is no before) 

In more of life true life no more. 
And Love the indifference to be. 

Then might I find, ere yet the morn 
Breaks hither over Indian seas. 
That Shadow waiting with the keys, 

To shroud me from my proper scorn. 

XXVIL 

I ENVY not in any moods 
The captive void of noble rage, 
The linnet born within the cage. 

That never knew the suinmer woods; 

I envy not the beast that takes 
His license in the field of time, 
Uufetter'd by the sense of crime. 

To whom a conscience never wakes : 



no 



IN MEMORIAM. 



Nor, what may count itself as blest, 
The heart that never plighted troth, 
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth ; 

Nor any want-begotten rest. 

I hold it true, whate'er befall ; 

I feel it, when I sorrow most ; 

'T is better to have loved and lost 
Than never to have loved at all. 

XXVIII. 

The time draws near the birth of Christ : 
The moon is hid ; the night is still ; 
The Christmas bells from hill to hill 

Answer each other in the mist. 

Four voices of four hamlets round, 
From far and near, on mead and moor. 
Swell out and fail, as if a door 

Were shut between me and the sound: 

Each voice four changes on the wind. 
That now dilate, and now decrease, 
Peace and good-will, good-will and peace. 

Peace and good-will, to all mankind. 

This year I slept and woke with pain, 
I almost wish'd no more to wake, 
And that my hold on life would break 

Before I heard those bells again: 

But they my troubled spirit rule, 
For they coutroll'd me when a boy; 
They bring me sorrow touch'd with joy, 

The merry, merry bells of Yule. 

■ XXIX. 

With such compelling cause to grieve 
As daily vexes household peace, 
And chains regret to his decease, 

How dare we keep our Christmas-eve ; 

Which brings no more a welcome guest 
To enrich the threshold of the night 
With shower'd largess of delight, 

In dance and song and game and jest. 

Yet go, and while the holly-boughs 
Entwine the cold baptismal font, 
Make one wreath more for Use and Wont 

That guard the portals of the house ; 

Old sisters of a day gone by. 

Gray nurses, loving nothing new ; 
* Why should they miss their yearly due 
Before their time ? They too will die. 

XXX. 

With trembling fingers did we weave 
The holly round the Christmas hearth : 
A rainy cloud possess'd the earth, 

And sadly fell our Christmas-eve. 

At our old pastimes in the hall 
We gamboll'd, making vain pretence 
Of gladness, with an awful sense 

Of one mute Shadow watching all. 

We paused : the winds were in the beech : 
We heard them sweep the winter land ; 
And in a circle hand-in-hand 

Sat silent, looking each at each. 

Then echo-like our voices rang ; 
We sung, tho' every eye was dim, 
A merry song we sang with him 

Last year: impetuously we sang: 



We ceased: a gentler feeling crept 

Upon us : surely rest is meet : 

"They rest," we said, "their sleep is sweet, 
And silence follow'd, and we wept. 

Our voices took a higher range ; 

Once more we sang : " They do not die 

Nor lose their mortal sympathy, 
Nor change to us, although they change ; 

"Rapt from the fickle and the frail 
With gather'd power, yet the same, 
Pierces the keen seraphic flame 

From orb to orb, from veil to veil." 

Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn, 
Draw forth the cheerful day from night: 
O Father, touch the east, and light 

The light that shone when Hope was born. 

XXXI. 

When Lazarus left his charnel-cave. 
And home to Mary's house return'd. 
Was this demanded, — if he yearn'd 

To hear her weeping by his grave ? 

"Where wert thou, brother, those four days?" 
■ There lives no record of reply, 
Which telling what it is to die 
Had surely added praise to praise. 

From every house the neighbors met, 
The streets were flll'd with joyful sound, 
A solemn gladness even crown'd 

The purple brows of Olivet. 

Behold a man raised up by Christ 1 

The rest remaiueth unreveal'd ; 

He told it not ; or something seal'd 
The lips of that Evangelist. 

XXXIL 

Hee eyes are homes of silent prayer. 
Nor other thousdit her mind admits 
But, he was Aem, and there he sits, 

And he that brought him back is there. 

Then one deep love doth supersede 
All other, when her ardent gaze 
Roves from the living brother's face, 

And rests upon the Life indeed. 

All subtle thought, all curious fears, 
Borne down by gladness so complete, 
She bows, she bathes the Saviour's feet 

With costly spikenard and with tears. 

Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers. 
Whose loves in higher love endure ; 
What souls possess themselves so pure. 

Or is there blessedness like theirs ? 

XXXIII. 

O THOU that after toil and storm 
Mayst seem to have reach'd a purer air. 
Whose faith has centre everywhere, 

Nor cares to fix itself to form, 

Leave thou thy sister, when she prays, 
Her early Heaven, her happy views; 
Nor thou with shadow'd hint confuse 

A life that leads melodious days. 

Her faith thro' form is pure as thine. 
Her hands are quicker unto good : 
O, sacred be the flesh and blood 

To which she links a truth divine ! 



IN MEMORIAM. 



Ill 



See thou, that countest reason ripe 

In holdiug by the law within, 

Thou fail not in a world of sin, 
And ev'n for want of such a type. 

XXXIV. 

My own dim life should teach me this, 
That life shall live forevermore. 
Else earth is darkness at the core. 

And dust and ashes all that is ; 

This round of green, this orb of flame. 
Fantastic beauty ; such as lurks 
In some wild Poet, when he works 

Without a conscience or an aim. 

What then were God to such as I ? 

'T were hardly worth my while to choose 

Of things all mortal, or to use 
A little patience ere I die; 

'T were best at once to sink to peace. 
Like birds the charming serpent draws. 
To drop head-foremost in the jaws 

Of vacant darkness, and to cease. 

XXXV. 

Yet if some voice that man could trust 
Should murmur from the narrow house, 
"The cheeks drop in; the body bows; 

Man dies: nor is there hope in dust:" 

Might I not say, "Yet even here, 
But for one hour, O Love, I strive 
To keep so sweet a thing alive?" 

But I should turn mine ears and hear 

The moanings of the homeless sea, 
The sound of streams that swift or slow 
Draw down iEonian hills, and sow 

The dust of continents to be ; 

And Love would answer with a sigh, 
"The sound of that forgetful shore 
Will change my sweetness more and more, 

Half-dead to know that I shall die." 

O me ! what profits it to put 
An idle case ? If Death were seen 
At first as Death, Love had not been. 

Or been in narrowest working shut. 

Mere fellowship of sluggish moods. 

Or in his coarsest Satyr-shape 

Had bruised the herb and crush'd the grape, 
And bask'd and batten'd in the woods. 

XXXVI. 

Tno' truths in manhood darkly join. 
Deep-seated in our mystic frame, 
We yield all blessing to the name 

Of Him that made them current coin ; 

For Wisdom dealt with mortal powers. 
Where truth in closest words shall fail, 
When truth embodied in a tale 

Shall enter in at lowly doors. 

And 80 the Word had breath, and wrought 
With human hands the creed of creeds 
In loveliness of perfect deeds, 

More strong than all poetic thought; 

Which he may read that binds the sheaf. 
Or builds the house, or digs the grave, 
And those wild eyes that watch the wave 

In roarings round the coral reef. 



XXXVII. 

Ueania speaks with darken'd brow, 
"Thou pratest here where thou art least: 
This faith has many a purer priest. 

And many an abler voice than thou. 

"Go down beside thy native rill, 
On thy Parnassus set thy feet. 
And hear thy laurel whisper sweet 

About the ledges of the hill." 

And my Melpomene replies, 
A touch of shame upon her cheek : 
"I am not worthy ev'n to speak 

Of thy prevailing mysteries, 

"For I am but an earthly Muse, 
And owning but a little art 
To lull with song an aching heart. 

And render human love his dues ; 

"But brooding on the dear one dead, 
And all he said of things divine, 
(And dear to me as sacred wine 

To dying lips is all he said,) 

"I murmur'd, as I came along. 
Of comfort clasp'd in truth reveal'd ; 
And loiter'd in the Master's field. 

And darken'd sanctities with song." 

XXXVIII. 

With weary steps I loiter on, 
Tho' always under alter'd skies 
The purple from the distance dies. 

My prospect and horizon gone. 

No joy the blowing season gives. 
The herald melodies of spring. 
But in the songs I love to sing 

A doubtful gleam of solace lives. 

If any care for what is here 
Survive in spirits render'd free. 
Then are these songs I sing of thee 

Not all ungrateful to thine ear. 

XXXIX. 

C'oiJLD*we forget the widow'd hour, 
And look on Spirits breathed away, 
As on a maiden in the day 

When first she wears her orange-flower ! 

When crown'd with blessing she doth rise 
To take her latest leave of home, 
And hopes and light regrets that come 

Make April of her tender eyes : 

And doubtful joys the father move. 
And tears are on the mother's face. 
As parting with a long embrace 

She enters other realms of love: 

Iler oflSce there to rear, to teach. 
Becoming, as is meet and fit, 
A link among the days, to knit 

The generations each with each ; 

And, doubtless, unto thee is given 
A life that bears immortal fruit 
In such great offices as suit 

The full-grown energies of heaven. 

Ay me, the diflference I discern ! 
How often shall her old fireside 
Be cheer'd with tidings of the bride, 

How often she herself return. 



112 



IN MEMORIAM. 



Aud tell them all they would have told, 
And bring her babe, and make her boast, 
Till even those that miss'd her moi^t 

Shall count new things as dear as old: 

But th*u and I have shaken hands, 
Till growing winters lay me low ; 
My paths are in the fields I know. 

And thine in undiscover'd lauds. 

XL. 

Tht spirit ere our fatal loss 
Did ever rise from high to higher ; 
As mounts the heavenward altar-fire, 

As flies the lighter thro' the gross. 

But thou art turn'd to something strange. 
And I have lost the links that bound 
Thy changes ; here upon the ground. 

No more partaker of thy change. 

Deep folly ! yet that this could be,— 
That I could wing my will with might 
To leap the grades of life and light. 

And flash at once, my friend, to thee: 

For tho' my nature rarely yields 
To that vague fear implied in death ; 
Nor shudders at the gulfs beneath. 

The bowlings from forgotten fields : 

Yet oft when sundown skiits the moor 

An inner trouble I behold, 

A spectral doubt which makes me cold, 
That I shall be thy mate no more, 

Tho' following with an upward mind 
The wonders that have come to thee, 
Thro' all the secular to-be. 

But evermore a life behind. 

XLI. 
I VEX my heart with fancies dim: 

He still outstript me in th» race ; 

It was but unity of place 
That made me dream I rank'd with him. 

And so may Place retain us still, 
And he tho much-beloved again, ^ 
A lord of large experience, train 

To riper growth the mind and will: 

And what delights can equal those 
That stir the spirit's inner deeps. 
When one that loves, but knows not, reiips 

A truth from one that loves aud knows? 

XLII. 

If Sleep and Death be truly one. 

And every spirit's folded bloom 

Thro' all its intervita'l gloom 
In some long trance should slumber on ; 

Unconscious of the sliding hour. 

Bare of the body, might it last. 

And silent traces of the past 
Be all the color of the flower: 

So then were nothing lost to man ; 

So that still garden of the souls 

In many a figured leaf enrolls 
The total world since life began ; 

And love will last as pure and whole 
As when he loved me here in Time, 
And at the spiritual prime 

Rewaken with the dawning soul. 



XLIII. 

How fares it with the happy dead? 

For here the man is more and more ; 

But he forgets the days before 
God shut the doorways of his head. 

The days have vanish'd, tone and tint. 
And yet perhaps the hoarding sense 
Gives out at times (he knows not whence) 

A little flash, a mystic hint; 

And in the long harmonious years 
(If Death so taste Lethean springs) 
May some dim touch of earthly things 

Surprise thee ranging with thy peers. 

II" such a dreamy touch should fall, 
O turn thee round, resolve the doubt; 
My guardian angel will speak out 

In that high place, and tell thee all. 

XLIV. 

The baby new to earth and sky. 
What time his tender palm is prest 
Against the circle of the breast, 

Has never thought that "this is I:" 

But as he grows he gathers much. 
And learns the use of "I," and "me," 
And finds "I am not what I see, 

And other than the things I touch." 

So rounds he to a separate mind 
From whence cl»ar memory may begin, 
As thro' the frame that binds him in 

His isolation grows defined. 

This use may lie in blood and breath. 
Which else were fruitless of their due. 
Had man to learn himself anew 

Beyond the second birth of Death. 

XLV. 

We ranging down this lower track. 
The path we came by, thorn and flower, 
Is shadow'd by the growing hour, 

Lest life should fail in looking back. 

So be it: there no shade can last 
In that deep dawn behind the tomb, 
But clear from marge to marge shall bloom 

The eternal landscape of the past : 

A lifelong tract of time reveal'd ; 

The fruitful hours of still increase ; 

Days order'd in a wealthy peace. 
And those five years its richest field. 

O Love, thy province were not large, 
A bounded field, nor stretching far; 
Look also. Love, a brooding star, 

A rosy warmth from marge to marge. 

XLVI. 

That each, who seems a separate whole. 
Should move his rounds, and fusing all 
The skirts of self again, should fall 

demerging in the general Soul, 

Is faith as vague as all unsiveet : 
Eternal form shall still divide 
The eternal soul from all beside ; 

Aud I shall know him when we meet: 

And we shall sit at endless feast. 
Enjoying each the other's good: 
What vaster dream can hit the mood 

Of Love on earth ? He seeks at least 



IN MEMOEIAM. 



118 



Upon the last and sharpest height, 
Before the spirits fade away, 
Some landing-place to clasp and say, 

"Farewell! We lose ourselves in light." 

XLVII. 

If these brief lays of Sorrow born, 
Were taken to be such as closed 
Grave doubts and answers here proposed, 

Then these were such as men might scorn : 

Her care is not to part and prove ; 
She takes, when harsher moods remit, 
What slender shade of doubt may flit, 

And makes it vassal unto love : 

And hence, indeed, she sports with words. 
But better serves a wholesome law, 
And holds it sin and shame to draw 

The deepest measure fi-om the chords: 

Nor dare she trust a larger lay, 
But rather loosens from the lip 
Short swallow-flights of song, that dip 

Their wings in tears, and skim away. 

XLVIII. 

From art, from nature, from the schools, 
Let random influences glance. 
Like light in many a shiver'd lance 

That breaks about the dappled pools: 

The lightest wave of thought shall lisp. 
The fancy's tenderest eddy wreathe, 
The slightest air of song shall breathe 

To make the sullen surface crisp. 

And look thy look, and go thy way. 
But blame not thou the winds that make 
The seeming-wanton ripple break, 

The tender-pencil'd shadow play. 

Beneath all fancied hopes and fears, 
Ay me ! the sorrow deepens down. 
Whose muffled motions blindly drown 

The bases of my life in tears. 

XLIX. 

Be near me when my light is low, 
When the blood creeps, and the nerves prici< 
And tingle ; and the heart is sick. 

And all the wheels of Being slow. 

Be near me when the sensuous frame 
Is rack'd with pangs that conquer trust : 
And Time, a maniac scattering dust, 

And Life, a Fury slinging flame. 

Be near me when my faith Is dry. 
And men the flies of latter spring. 
That lay their eggs, and sting and sing. 

And weave their petty cells and die. 

Be near me when I fade away. 
To point the term of human strife, 
And on the low dark verge of life 

The twilight of eternal day. 



Do we indeed desire the dead 
Should still be near us at our side? 
Is there no baseness we would hide ? 

No inner vileness that we dread ? 

Shall he for whose applause I strove, 
I had such reverence for his blame, 
See with clear eye some hidden shame. 

And I be lessen'd in his love? 



I wrong the grave with fears untrue : 
Shall love be blamed for want of faith ? 
There must be wisdom with great Death : 

The dead shall look me thro' and thro'. 

Be near us when we climb or fall : 
Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours 
With larger other eyes than ours, 

To make allowance for us all. 

LI. 

I CANNOT love thee as I ought. 
For love reflects the thing beloved : 
My words are only words, and moved 

Upon the topmost froth of thought. 

"Yet blame not thou thy plaintive song," 
The Spirit of true love replied ; 
" Thou canst not move me from thy side. 

Nor human frailty do me wrong. 

"What keeps a spirit wholly true 

To that ideal which he bears? 

What record ? not the sinless years 
That breathed beneath the Syrian blue: 

" So fret not, like an idle girl. 
That life is dash'd with flecks of sin. 
Abide : thy wealth is gather 'd in. 

When Time hath sunder'd shell from pearl.' 

LIL 

How many a father have I seen, 
A sober man among his boys. 
Whose youth was full of foolish noise, 

Who wears his manhood hale and green : 

And dare we to this fancy give. 
That had the wild-oat not been sowb. 
The soil, left barren, scarce had grown 

The grain by which a man may live? 

O, if we held the doctrine sound 
For life outliving heats of youth. 
Yet who would preach it as a truth 

To those that eddy round and round? 

Hold thou the good: define it well: 

For fear divine Philosophy 

Should push beyond her mark, and be 
Procuress to the Lords of Hell. 

LIII. 

O TET we tnist that somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill. 
To pangs of nature, sins of will. 

Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; 

That nothing walks with aimless feet ; 

That not one life shall be destroy'd, 

Or cast as rubbish to the void. 
When God hath made the pile complete; 

That not a worm is cloven in vain ; 

That not a moth with vain desire 

Is shrivell'd in a fruitless fire. 
Or but subserves another's gain. 

Behold we know not anything ; 

I can but trust that good shall fall 

At last— far off'— at last, to all. 
And every winter change to spring. 

So runs my dream : but what am I ? 

An infant crying in the night: 

An infant crying for the light: 
And with no language bnt a cry. 



114 



11^ MEMORIAM. 



LIV. 

The wish, that of the living whole 
No life may fail heyond the grave, 
Derives it not from what we have 

The likest God within the Boul ? 

Are God and Nature then at strife. 
That Nature lends such evil dreams? 
So careful of the type she seems, 

So careless of the single life ; 

That I, considering everyvifhere 
Her secret meaning in her deeds, 
And finding that of fifty seeds 

She often brings but one to bear, 

I falter where I firmly trod, 
And falling with ray weight of cares 
Upon the great world's altar-stairs 

That slope thro' darkness up to God, 

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, 
And gather dust and chaff, and call 
To what I feel is Lord of all, 

And faintly trust the larger hope. 

LV. 

" So careful of the type ?" but no. 
From scarped clifi' and quarried stone 
She cries, " A thousand types are gone : 

I care for nothing, all shall go. 

"Thou makest thine appeal to me: 
I bring to life, I bring to death : 
The spirit does but mean the breath: 

I know no more." And he, shall he, 

Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair, 
Such splendid purpose in his eyes. 
Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies. 

Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer. 

Who trusted God was love indeed. 
And love Creation's final law,— 
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw 

With ravin, shriek'd against his creed, — 

Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills. 
Who battled for the True, the Just, 
Be blown about the desert dust, 

Or seal'd within the iron hills ? 

No more ? A monster then, a dream, 
A discord. Dragons of the prime, 
That tare each other in their slime. 

Were mellow music match'd with him. 

O life as futile, then, as frail ! 

O for thy voice to soothe aud bless ! 

What hope of answer, or redress ? 
Behind the veil, behind the veil. 

LVI. 

Peace; come away: the song of woe 
Is after all an earthly song : 
Peace ; come away : we do him wrong 

To sing so wildly: let us go. 

Come ; let us go : your cheeks are pale ; 
But half my life I leave behind : 
Methinks my friendis richly shrined: 

But I shall pass ; my work will fail. 

Yet in these ears, till hearing dies. 
One set slow bell will seem to toll 
The passing of the sweetest soul 

That ever look'd with human eyes. 



I hear it now, and o'er aud o'er. 

Eternal greetings to the dead ; 

Aud "Ave, Ave, Ave," said, 
"Adieu, adieu," forevermore. 

LVII. 

In those sad words I took farewell: 

Like echoes in sepulchral halls. 

As drop by drop the water falls 
In vaults aud catacombs, they fell; 

And, falling, idly broke the peace 
Of hearts that beat from day to day, 
Half conscious of their dying clay. 

And those cold crypts where they shall cease. 

The high Muse answer'd : " Wherefore grieve 
Thy brethren with a fruitless tear ? 
Abide a little longer here. 

And thou shalt take a nobler leave." 

LVIII. 

O Sorrow, wilt thou live with me. 
No casual mistress, but a wife. 
My bosom-friend and half of life ; 

As I confess it needs must be ; 

O Sorrow, wilt thou rule my blood. 
Be sometimes lovely like a bride, 
And put thy harsher moods aside. 

If thou wilt have me wise and good. 

My centred passion cannot move, 

Nor will it lessen from to-day; 

But I'll have leave at times to play 
As with the creature of my love ; 

Aud set thee forth, for thou art mine. 
With so much hope for years to come, 
That, howsoe'er I know thee, some 

Could hardly tell what name were thine. 

LIX. 

He past ; a soul of nobler tone : 
My spirit loved and loves him yet. 
Like some poor girl whose heart is set 

On one whose rank exceeds her own. 

He mixing with his proper sphere. 
She finds the baseness of her lot. 
Half jealous of she knows not what, 

Aud envying all that meet him there. 

The little village looks forlorn ; 
She sighs amid her narrow days. 
Moving about the household ways. 

In that dark house where she was bom. 

The foolish neighbors come and go. 
And tease her till the day draws by : 
At night she weeps, " How vain am I ! 

How should he love a thing so low ?" 

LX. 

If, in thy second state sublime. 
Thy rausom'd reason change replies 
With all the circle of the wise. 

The perfect flower of human time ; 

And if thou cast thine eyes below. 
How dimly character'd and slight. 
How dwarf'd a growth of cold and nigbf. 

How blauch'd with darkness must I grow ! 

Yet turn thee to the doubtful shore. 
Where thy first form was made a man ; 
I loved tliee, Spirit, and love, nor can 

The soul of Shakespeare love thee more. 



IN MEMOEIAM. 



115 



LXI. 

Tuo' if au eye that 's downward cast 
Could make thee somewhat bleuch or fail. 
Then he my love au idle tale, 

And fading legend of the past; 

And thou, as one that once declined 
When he was little more than boy. 
On some unworthy heart with joy. 

But lives to wed au equal mind; 

And breathes a novel world, the while 

His other passion wholly dies, 

Or in the light of deeper eyes 
Is matter for a flying smile. 

LXII. 

Yet pity for a horse o'er-driven. 
And love in which my hound has part, 
Can hang no weight upon my heart 

la its assumptions up to heaven ; 

And I am so much more than these. 
As thou, perchance, art more than I, 
And yet I spare them sympathy, 

And I would set their pains at ease. 

So mayst thou watch me where I weep. 
As, uuto vaster motions bound. 
The circuits of thine orbit round 

A higher height, a deeper deep. 

LXIII. 

Dost thou look back on what hath been. 

As some divinely gifted man, 

Whose life in low estate began 
And on a simple village green ; 

Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, 
And grasps the skirts of happy chance. 
And breasts the blows of circumstance. 

And grapples with his evil star; 

Who makes by force his merit known. 
And lives to clutch the golden keys, 
To mould a mighty state's decrees. 

And shape the whisper of the throne ; 

And moving up from high to higher, 
Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope 
The pillar of a people's hope. 

The centre of a world's desire ; 

Yet feels, as in a pensive dream, 
When all his active powers are still, 
A distant dearness in the hill, 

A secret sweetness in the stream. 

The limit of his narrower fate. 
While yet beside its vocal springs 
He play'd at counsellors and kings, 

With one that was his earliest mate ; 

Who ploughs with pain his native lea 
And reaps the labor of his hands, 
Or in the farrow musing stands : 

"Does my old friend remember mef" 

LXIV. ^ 

Sweet soul, do with me as thou wilt; 

I lull a fancy trouble-tost 

With "Love's too precious to be lost, 
A little grain shall not be spilt." 

And in that solace can I sing. 
Till out of painful phases wrought 
There flutters up a happy thought, 

Self-balanced on a lightsome wing : 



Since we deserved the name of friends, 

And thine efi'ect so lives in me, 

A part of mine may live in thee, 
And move thee on to noble en0s. 

LXV. 

YoTT thought my heart too far diseased ; 

You wonder when my fancies play 

To find me gay among the gay, 
Like one with any trifle pleased. 

The shade by which my life was crost. 

Which makes a desert in the mind, 
- Has made me kindly with my kind. 
And like to him whose sight is lost ; 

Whose feet are guided thro' the land, 
Whose jest among his friends is free. 
Who takes the children on his knee, 

And winds their curls about his hand : 

He plays with threads, he beats his chair 
For pastime, dreaming of the sky ; 
His inner day can never die. 

His night of loss is always there." 

LXVI. 

When on my bed the moonlight falls, 

I know that in thy place of rest, 

By that broad water of the west. 
There comes a glory on the walls : 

Thy marble bright in dark appears. 

As slowly steals a silver flame 

Along the letters of thy name, 
And o'er the number of thy years. 

The mystic glory swims away: 
From off my bed the moonlight dies ■ 
And, closing eaves of wearied eyes, 

I sleep till dusk is dipt in gray : 

And then I know the mist is drawn 
A lucid veil from coast to coast. 
And in the dark church, like a ghost. 

Thy tablet glimmers to the dawn. 

LXVII. 

When in the down I sink my head. 
Sleep, Death's twin-brother, times my breath : 
Sleep, Death's twin-brother, knows not Death, 

Nor can I dream of thee as dead : 

I walk as ere I walk'd forlorn. 
When all our path was fresh with dew, 
Aud all the bugle breezes blew 

Keveillee to the breaking morn. 

But what is this ? I turn about, 
I find a trouble in thine eye. 
Which makes me sad, I know not why, 

Nor can my dream resolve the doubt: 

But ere the lark hath left the lea 

I wake, and I discern the truth ; 

It is the trouble of my youth 
That foolish sleep transfers to thee. 

LXVIIL 

I dream'd there would be Spring no more, 
That Nature's ancient power Avas lost : 
The streets were black with smoke and frost, 

They chatter'd trifles at the door : 

I wander'd from the noisy town, 
I found a wood with thorny boughs : 
I took the thorns to bind my brows, 

I wore them like a civic crown : 



116 



IN MEMORIAM. 



I met with scoffs, I met with scorns 
From youth and babe and hoary hairs : 
They call'd me in the public squares 

The fool thil wears a crown of thorns : 

They call'd me fool, they call'd me child : 

I found an angel of the night ; 

The voice was low, the look was bright; 
He look'd upon my crown and smiled : 

He reach'd the glory of a hand, 
That seem'd to touch it into leaf: 
The voice was not the voice of grief; 

The words were hard to understand. 

LXIX. 

I CANNOT see the features right. 
When on the gloom I strive to paint 
The face I know ; the hues are faint 

And mix with hollow masks of night ; 

Cloud-towers by ghostly masons wrought, 
A gulf that ever shuts and gapes, 
A hand that points, and palled shapes 

In shadowy thoroughfares of thought ; 

And crowds that stream from yawning doors, 
And shoals of pucker'd faces drive ; 
Dark bulks that tumble half alive, 

And lazy lengths on boundless shores : 

Till all at once beyond the will 

I hear a vnzard music roll. 

And thro' a lattice on the soul 
Looks thy fair face and makes it still. 

LXX. 

Sleep, kinsman thou to death and trance 
And madness, thou hast forged at last 
A night-long Present of the Past 

In which we went thro' summer France. 

Hadst thou such credit with the soul? 
Then bring an opiate trebly strong. 
Drug down the blindfold sense of wrong- 
That so my pleasure may be whole ; 

While now we talk as once we talk'd 
Of men and minds, the dust of change. 
The days that grow to something strange. 

In walking as of old we walk'd 

Beside the river's wooded reach. 
The fortress, and the mountain ridge. 
The cataract flashing from the bridge, 

The breaker breaking on the beach. 

LXXI. 

R18E8T thou thus, dim dawn, again. 
And howlest, issuing out of night. 
With blasts that blow the poplar white, 

And lash with storm the streaming pane f 

Day, when my crown'd estate begun 
To pine in that reverse of doom, 
Which sicken'd every living bloom. 

And blurr'd the splendor of the sun ; 

Who nsherest in the dolorous hour 
With thy quick tears that make the rose 
Pull sideways, and the daisy close 

Her crimson fringes to the shower ; 

Who might'st have heaved a windless flame 
Up the deep East, or, whispering, play'd 
A chequer-work of beam and shade 

Along the hills, yet looked the same, 



As wan, as chill, as wild as now ; 
Day, mark'd as with some hideous crime 
When the dark hand struck down thro' time, 

And cancell'd nature's best: but thou. 

Lift as thou mayst thy burthen'd brows 
Thro' clouds that drench the morning star, 
And whirl the ungarner'd sheaf afar. 

And sow the sky with flying boughs, 

And up thy vault with roaring sound ' 
Climb thy thick noon, disastrous day ; 
Touch thy dull goal of joj'less gray. 

And hide thy shame beneath the ground. 

LXXIL 

So many worlds, so much to do, 
So little done, such things to be. 
How know I what had need of thee, 

For thou wert strong as thou wert true ? 

The fame is quench'd that I foresaw, 
The head hath miss'd an earthly wreath : 
I curse not nature, no, nor death ; 

For nothing is that errs from law. 

We pass ; the path that each man trod 
Is dim, or will be dim, With weeds : 
What fame is left for human deeds 

In endless age? It rests with God. 

hollow wraith of dying ftime, 
Fade wholly, while the soul exults, 
And self-infolds the large results 

Of force that would have forged a name. 

LXXIII. 

As sometimes in a dead man's face, 
To those that watch it more and more, 
A likeness, hardly seen before. 

Comes out — to some one of his race : 

So, dearest, now thy brows are cold, 
I see thee what thou art, and know 
Thy likeness to the wise below, 

Thy kindred with the great of old. 

But there is more than I can see, 
And what I see I leave unsaid. 
Nor speak it, knowing Death has made 

His darkness beautiful with thee. 

LXXIV. 

1 LEAVE thy praises unespress'd 

In verse that brings myself relief, 

And by the measure of my grief 

I leave thy greatness to be guess'd ; 

What practice howsoe'er expert 
In fitting aptest words to things, 
Or voice the richest-toned that sings 

Hath power to give thee as thou wert? 

I care not in these fading days 
To raise a cry that lasts not long. 
And round thee with the breeze of song 

To stir a little 4ust of praise. 

Thy leaf has perish'd in the green, 
And, while we breathe beneath the sun. 
The world which credits what is done 

Is cold to all that might have been. 

So here shall silence guard thy fame ; 

But somewhere, out of human view, 

Whate'er thy hands are set to do 
Is wrought with tumult of acclaim. 



m MEMORIAM. 



117 



LXXV. 

Take wings of faucy, and ascend, 
And in a moment set thy face 
Where all the starry heavens of space 

Are sharpen'd to a needle's end ; 

Take ^^ings of foresight ; lighten thro' 
The secular abyss to come, 
And lo, thy deepest lays are dumb 

Before the mouldering of a yew; 

And if the matin songs, that woke 
The darkness of our planet, last, 
Thine own shall wither in the vast. 

Ere half the lifetime of an oak. 

Ere these have clothed their branchy bowers 
With fifty Mays, thy songs are vain ; 
And what are they when these remain 

The ruiu'd shells of hollow towers ? 

LXXVI. 

What hope is here for modern rhyme 
To him who turns a musing eye 
On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie 

Foreshorten'd in the tract of time ? • 

These mortal lullabies of pain 
May bind a book, may line a box. 
May serve to curl a maiden's locks ; 

Or when a thousand moons shall wane 

A man upon a stall may find, 
And, passing, turn the page that tells 
A grief, then changed to something else, 

Sung by a long-forgotten mind. 

But what of that? My darken'd ways 
Shall ring with music all the same; 
To breathe my loss is more than fame. 

To utter love more sweet than praise. 

Lxxvn. 

Again at Christmas did we weave 
The holly round the Christmas hearth ; 
The silent snow possess'd the earth, 

And calmly fell our Christmas-eve: 

The yule-clog sparkled keen with frost. 
No wing of wind the region swept, 
But over all things brooding slept 

The quiet sense of something lost. 

As in the winters left behind. 
Again our ancient games had place, 
The mimic picture's breathing grace. 

And dance and song and hoodmau-blind. 

Who show'd a token of distress ? 
No single tear, no mark of pain : 

sorrow, then can sorrow wane ? 
O grief, can grief be changed to less ? 

O last regret, regret can die ! 
No, — mist with all this mystic frame, 
Her deep relations are the same. 

But with long use her tears are dry. 

LXXVIII. 

"Moke than my brothers are to me," 
Let this not vex thee, noble heart ! 

1 know thee of what force thou art 
To hold the costliest love in fee. 

\ 
But thou and I are one in kind. 

As moulded like in nature's mint; 

And hill and wood and field did print 
The same sweet forms in either mind. 



For us the same cold streamlet curl'd 
Thro' all his eddying coves ; the same 
All winds that roam the twilight came 

In whispers of the beauteous world- 

At one dear knee we profier'd vows. 
One lesson from one book we learn'd. 
Ere childhood's flaxen ringlet turn'd 

To black and brown on kindred brows. 

And so my wealth resembles thine, 
But he was rich where I was poor, 
And he supplied my want the more 

As his uulikeness fitted mine. 

LXXIX. 

If any vague desire should rise. 
That holy Death ere Arthur died 
Had moved me kindly from his side, 

And dropt the dust on tearless eyes; 

Then fancy shapes, as fancy can. 
The grief my loss in him had wrought, 
A grief as deep as life or thought. 

But stay'd in peace with God and man. 

I make a picture in the brain ; 

I hear the sentence that he speaks; 

He bears the burthen of the weeks ; 
But turns his burthen into gain. 

His credit thus shall set me free; 
And, influence-rich to soothe and save. 
Unused example from the grave 

Keach out dead hands to comfort me. 

LXXX. 

Could I have said while he was here, 
"My love shall now no further range; 
There cannot come a mellower change. 

For now is love mature in ear." 

Love, then, had hope of richer store : 
What end is here to my complaint? 
This haunting whisper makes me faint, 

"More years had made me love thee more. 

But Death returns an answer sweet: 
"My sudden frost was sudden gain. 
And gave all ripeness to the grain 

It might have drawn from after-heat." 

LXXXI. 

I WAGE not any feud with Death 
For changes wrought on form and face ; 
No lower life that earth's embrace 

May breed with him can fright my faith. 

Eternal process moving on. 

From state to state the spirit walks; 

And these are but the shatter'd stalks. 
Or ruin'd chrysalis of one. 

Nor blame I Death, because he bare 
The use of virtue out of earth : 
I know transplanted human worth 

Will bloom to profit, otherwhere. 

For this alone on Death I wreak 
The wrath that garners in my heart ; 
He put our lives so far apart 

We cannot hear each other speak. 

Lxxxn. "~ 

Dip down upon the northern shore, 
O sweet new-year, delaying long: 
Thou doest expectant nature wrong; 

Delaying long, delay no more. 



118 



IN MEMOKIAM. 



What stays thee from the clouded noons, 
Thy sweetness from its proper place ? 
Can trouble live wth April days, 

Or sadness in the summer moons? 

Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire. 
The little speedwell's darling blue. 
Deep tulips dash'd with fiery dew, 

Laboruums, dropping-wells of fire. 

thou, new-year, delaying long, 
Delayest the sorrow in my blood. 
That longs to burst a frozen bud, 

And flood a fresher throat with song. 

LXXXIII. 

When I contemplate all alone 
The life that had been thine below, 
And fix my thoughts on all the glow 

To which thy crescent would have growis ; 

1 see thee sitting crown'd with good, 
A central warmth diflfusiug bliss 

In glance and smile, and clasp and kis^. 
On all the branches of thy blood ; 

Thy blood, my friend, and partly mine ; 
For now the day was drawing ou 
When thou shouldst link thy life with one 

Of mine own house, and boys of thine 

Had babbled " Uncle " on my knee ; 
But that remorseless iron hour 
Made cypress of her orange-flower, 

Despair- of Hope, and earth of thee. 

I seem to meet their least desire, 
To clap their cheeks, to call them mine. 
I see their unborn faces shine 

Beside the never-lighted fire. 

I see myself an honor'd guest. 
Thy partner in the flovrery walk 
Of letters, genial table-talk, 

Or deep dispute, and graceful jest ; 

While now thy prosperous labor fills 
The lips of men with honest praise, 
And sun by sun the happy days 

Descend below the golden hills 

With promise of a morn as fair ; 
And all the train of bounteous hours 
Conduct by paths of growing powers 

To reverence and the silver hair; 

Till slowly worn her earthly robe. 
Her lavish mission richly wrought. 
Leaving great legacies of thought. 

Thy spirit should fail from ofi" the globe ; 

What time mine ovni might also flee, 
As liuk'd with thine in love and fate, 
And, hovering o'er the dolorous strait 

To the other shore, involved in thee, 

Arrive at last the blessed goal. 
And He that died in Holy Land 
Would reach us out the shining hand. 

And take us as a single soul. 

What reed was that on which I leant? 
Ah, backward fancy, wherefore wake 
The old bitterness again, and break 

The low beginnings of content? 



LXXXIV. 

This truth came borne with bier and pall, 
I felt it, when I sorrow'd most, 
'T is better to have loved and lost, 

Than never to have loved at all 

O true in word, and tried in deed, 
Demanding so to bring relief 
To this which is our common grief. 

What kind of life is that I lead ; 

And whether trust in things above 
V Be dimm'd of sorrow or sustain'd ; 

And whether love for him have draiu'd 
My capabilities of love ; 

Your words have virtue such as draws 
A faithful answer from the breast, 
Thro' light reproaches, half exprest, 

And loyal unto kindly laws. 

My blood an even tenor kept, 
Till on mine ear this message falls, 
That in Vienna's fatal walls 

God's finger touch'd him, and he slept. 

The great Intelligences fair 
That range above our mortal state. 
In circle round the blessed gate, 

Received and gave him welcome there ; 

And led him thro' the blissful climes, 
And show'd him in the fountain fresh 
All knowledge that the sous of flesh 

Shall gather in the cycled times. 

But I remain'd, whose hopes were dim. 
Whose life, whose thoughts were little worth. 
To wander on a darken'd earth. 

Where all things round me breathed of him. 

O friendship, equal-poised control, 
O heart, with kindliest motion warm, 

sacred essence, other form, 
O solemn ghost, O crowned soul ! 

Yet none could better know than I, 
How much of act at human hands 
The sense of human will demands, 

By which we dare to live or die. 

Whatever way my days decline, 

1 felt and feel, tho' left alone, 
His being working in mine own. 

The footsteps of his life in mine ; 

A life that all the Muses deck'd 
With gifts of grace, that might express 
All-comprehensive tenderness, 

All-subtilizing intellect ; 

And 80 my passion hath not swerved 
To works of weakness, but I find 
An image comforting the mind. 

And in my grief a strength reserved. 

Likewise the imaginative woe, 
Tliat loved to handle spiritual strife, 
Diffused the shock thro' all my life, 

But in the present broke the blow. 

My pulses therefore beat again 
For other friends that once I met; 
Nor can it suit me to forget 

The mighty hopes that make ns men. 



IN MEMOEIAM. 



119 



I wod ycnir love : I count it crime 

To mouru for any oveimucli; 

I, the divided half of snch 
A friendship as had master'd Time ; 

Which masters Time indeed, and is 

Eternal, separate from fears: 
The all-assuming months and years 

Can take no part away from this : 

But Summer on the steaming floods, 
And Spring that sv^'ells the narrow brooks 
And Autumn, with a noise of rooks, 

That gather in the waning woods, 

And every pulse of wind and wave 
Recalls, in change of light or gloom. 
My old affection of the tomb, 

And my prime passion in the grave: 

My old affection of the tomb, 
A part of stillness, yearns to speak : 
"Arise, and get thee forth and seek 

A friendship for the years to come. 

"I watch thee from the quiet shore; 

Thy spirit up to mine can reach; 

But in dear words of human speech 
We two communicate no more." 

And I, " Can clouds of nature stain 
The starry clearness of the free ? 
How is it? Canst thou feel for me 

Some painless sympathy with pain?" 

And lightly does the whisper fall : 
"'T is hard for thee to fiithom this: 
I triumph in conclusive bliss, 

And that serene result of all." 

So hold I commerce with the dead ; 

Or so methiuks the dead would say ; 

Or so shall grief with symbols play, 
And pining life be fancy-fed. 

Now looking to some settled end. 
That these things pass, and I shall proa-e 
A meeting somewhere, love with love, 

I crave your pardon, O my friend ; 

If not so fresh, with love as true, 

I, clasping Lruther-hands, aver 

I could not, if I would, transfer 
The whole I felt for him to you. 

For which be they that hold apart 
The promise of the golden hoiu-s ? 
First love, first friendship, equal powers. 

That marry with the virgin heart. 

Still mine, that cannot but deplore. 
That beats within a lonely place. 
That yet remembers his embrace. 

But at his footstep leaps no more, 

My heart, tho' widow'd, may not rest 
Quite in the love of what is gone. 
But seeks to beat in time with one 

That warms another living breast. 

Ah, take the imperfect gift I bring. 
Knowing the primrose yet is dear, 
The primrose of the later year, 

As not unlike to that of Spring. 

LXXXV. 

Sweet after showers, ambrosial air, 
That rollest from the gorgeous gloom 
Of evening over brake and bloom 

And meadow, slowly breathing bare 



The round of space, and rapt below 
Thro' all the devvy-tassell'd wood. 
And shadowng down the horned flood 

In ripples, fan my brows and blow 

The fever from my cheek, and sigh 
The full new life that feeds thy breath 
Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death, 

111 brethren let the fancy fly 

From belt to belt of crimson seas 
On leagues of odor streaming far, 
To where in yonder orient star 

A hundred spirits whisper "Peace." 

LXXXVI. 

I PAST beside the reverend walls 
In which of old I wore the gown ; 
I roved at random thro' the town. 

And saw the tumult of the halls ; 

And heard once more in college fanes 
The storm their high-built organs make, 
And thunder-music, rolling, shake 

The prophets blazon'd on the panes ; 

And caught once more the distant shout. 
The measured pulse of racing oars 
Among the willows; paced the shores 

And many a bridge, and all about 

The same gray flats again, and felt 
The same, but not the same ; and last 
Up that long walk of limes I past 

To see the rooms in which he dwelt. 

Another name was on the door: 
I linger'd; all within was noise 
Of songs, and clapping hands, and boys 

That crash'd the glass and beat the floor; 

Where once we held debate, a band 
Of youthful friends, on mind and art. 
And labor, and the changing mart. 

And all the framework of the land ; 

When one would aim an arrow fair. 
But send it slackly from the string : 
And one would pierce an outer ring, 

And one an inner, here and there ; 

And last the master-bowman, he 
Would cleave the mark. A willing ear 
We lent him. Who, but hung to hear 

The rapt oration flowing free 

From point to point, veith power and grace 
And music in the bounds of law. 
To those conclusions when we saw 

The God within him light his face, 

And seem to lift the form, and glow 

In azure orbits heavenly-wise ; 

And over those ethereal eyes 
The bar of Michael Angelo. 

LXXXVII. 

Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet. 
Rings Eden thro' the budded quicks, 
O tell me where the senses mix, 

O tell me where the passions meet. 

Whence radiate : fierce extremes employ 
Thy spirits in the darkening leaf, 
And in the midmost heart of grief 

Thy passion clasps a secret joy : 



120 



IN MEMORIAM. 



And I — my harp would prelude woe— 
I cannot all command the strings: 
The glory of the sum of things 

Will flash along the chords and go. 

LXXXVIII. 

WiTcn-ELMS that counterchange the floor 
Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright ; 
And thou, with all thy breadth and height 

Of foliage, towering sycamore ; 

How often, hither wandering down. 
My Arthur found your shadows fair, 
And shook to all the liberal air 

The dust and din and steam of town : 

He brought an eye for all he saw ; 

He mixt in all our simple sports ; 

They pleased him, fresh from broiling courts 
And dusty purlieus of the law. 

O joy to him in this retreat, 
Immautled in ambrosial dark. 
To drink the cooler air, and mark 

The landscape winking thro' the heat: 

O sound to rout the brood of cares. 
The sweep of scythe in morning dew. 
The gust that round the garden flew. 

And tumbled half the mellowing pears I 

O bliss, when all in circle drawn 
About him, heart and ear were fed 
To hear him, as he lay and read 

The Tuscan poet on the lawn: 

Or in the all-golden afternoon 
A guest, or happy sister, sung. 
Or here she brought the harp and flung 

A ballad to the brightening moon: 

Nor less it pleased in livelier moods. 
Beyond the bounding hill to stray. 
And break the livelong summer day 

With banquet in the distant woods ; 

Whereat we glanced from theme to theme, 
Discuss'd the books to love or hate. 
Or touch'd the changes of the state. 

Or threaded some Socratic dream ; 

But if I praised the busy town, 
He loved to rail against it still, 
For "ground in yonder social mill. 

We rub each other's angles down, 

"And merge," he said, "in form and gloss 
The picturesque of man and man." 
We talk'd: the stream beneath us ran, 

The wine-flask lying couch'd in moss, 

Or cool'd within the glooming wave; 

And last, returning from afar, 

Before the crimson-circled star 
Had fall'n into her father's grave. 

And brushing ankle-deep in flowers. 
We heard behind the woodbine veil 
The milk that bubbled in the pail. 

And buzzings of the honeyed hours. 

LXXXIX. 

Hb tasted love with half his mind. 
Nor ever drank the inviolate spring 
Where nighest heaven, who flrst could fling 

"This bitter seed among mankind ; 



That could the dead, whose dying eyes 
Were closed with wail, resume their life, 
They would but find in child and wife 

An iron welcome when they rise: 

'T was well, indeed, when warm with wine, 
To pledge them with a kindly tear. 
To talk them o'er, to wish them here, 

To count their memories half divine ; 

But if they came who passed away. 
Behold their brides in other hands ; 
The hard heir strides about their lands. 

And will not yield them for a day. 

Yea, tho' their -sons were none of these, 
Not less the yet-loved sire would make 
Confusion worse than death, and shake 

The pillars of domestic peace. 

Ah dear, but come thou batfk to me : 
Whatever change the years have wrought, 
I find not yet one lonely thought 

That cries against my wish for thee. 

XC. 

When rosy plumelets tuft the larch, 
And rarely pipes the mounted ihruslr; 
Or underneath the barren bush 

Flits by the sea-blue bird of March : 

Come, wear the form by which I know 
Thy spirit in time among thy peers ; 
The hope of unaccomplish'd years 

Be large and lucid round thy brow. 

When summer's hourly-mellowing change 
May breathe, with many roses sweet. 
Upon the thousand waves of wheat. 

That ripple round the lonely grange ; 

Come : not in watches of the night, 
But where the sunbeam broodeth warm, 
Come, beauteous in thine after form. 

And like a finer light in light. 

XCI. 

If any vision should reveal 
Thy likeness, I might count it vain, 
As but the canker of the brain ; 

.Yea, tho' it spake and made appeal 

To chances where our lots were cast 

Together in the days behind. 

I might but say, I hear a wind 
Of memory murmuring the past. 

Yea, tho' it spake and bared to view 
A fact within the coming year ; 
And tho' the months, revolving near. 

Should prove the phantom-warning true, 

They might not seem thy prophecies. 

But spiritual presentiments, 

And such refraction of events 
As often rises ere they rise. 

XCII. 

I SHALL not see thee. Dare I say 
No spirit ever brake the band 
That stays him from the native land. 

Where first he walk'd when claspt in clay: 

No visual shade of some one lost. 
But he, the Spirit himself, may conje 
Where all the nerve of sense is numb ; 

Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost. 



IN MEMORIAM. 



121 



O, therefore from thy sightless rauge 
With gods iu unconjectured bliss, 
O, from the distance of the abyss 

Of tenfold-complicated change, 

. Descend, and touch, and enter ; hear 

The wish too strong for words to name ; 
That in this blindness of the frame 
My Ghost may feel that thine is near. 

XCIII. 

How pure at heart and sound in head, 

With what divine affections bold, 

Should be the man whose thought would hold 
An hour's communion with the dead. 

In vain shalt thou, or any, call 
The spirits from their golden day. 
Except, like them, thou too canst say. 

My spirit is at peace with all. 

They haunt the silence of the breast, 

Imaginations calm and fail-. 

The memory like a cloudless air, 
The conscience as a sea at rest: 

But when the heart is full of din. 
And doubt beside the portal waits, 
They can but listen at the gates. 

And hear the household jar within. 

XCIV. 

By night we linger'd on the lawn, 

For underfoot the herb was dry ; 

And genial warmth ; and o'er the sky 
The silvery haze of summer drawn ; 

And calm that let the tapers burn 
Unwavering : not a cricket chirr'd : 
The brook alone far-off was heard, 

And on the board the fluttering urn: 

And bats went round in fragrant skies. 
And wheePd or lit the filmy shapes 
That haunt the dusk, with ermine capes 

And woolly breasts and beaded eyes; 

While now we sang old songs that peal'd 
From knoll to knoll, where, couch'd at ease, 
The white kine glimmer'd, and the trees 

Laid their dark arms about the field. 

But when those others, one by one, 
Withdrew themselves from me and night, 
And in the house light after light 

Went out, and I was all alone, 

A hunger seized my heart ; I read 
Of that glad year that once had been. 
In those fall'n leaves which kept their green, 

The noble letters of the dead : 

And strangely on the silence broke 
The silent-speaking words, and strange 
Was love's dumb cry defying change 

To test his worth ; and strangely spoke 

The faith, the vigor, bold to dwell 
On doubts that drive the coward back, 
And keen thro' wordy snares to track 

Suggestion to her inmost cell. 

So word by word, and line by line, 
The dead man touch'd me from the past, 
And all at once it seem'd at last 

His living soul was flash'd on mine. 



And mine in his was wound, and whirl'd 
About empyreal heights of thought, 
And came on that which is, and caught 

The deep pulsations of the world, 

iEonian music measuring out 
The steps of Time, the shocks of Chance, 
The blows of Death. At length my trance 

Was cancell'd, stricken thro' with doubt. 

Vague words ! but ah, how hard to frame 
In -matter-moulded forms of speech, 
Or ev'n for intellect to reach 

Thro' memory that which I became : 

Till now the doubtful dusk reveal'd 
The knoll once more where, couch'd at ease, 
The white kine glimmer'd, and the trees 

Laid their dark arms. about the field: 

And, suck'd from out the distant gloom, 
A breeze began to tremble o'er 
The large leaves of the sycamore. 

And fluctuate all the still perfume, 

And gathering freshlier overhead, 
Rock'd the full-foliaged elms, and swung 
The heavy-folded rose, and flung 

The lilies to and fro, and said, 

"The dawn, the dawn," and died away; 
And East and West, without a breath, 
Mixt their dim lights,. like life and death. 

To broaden into boundless day. 

xcv. 

Yo0 say, but with no touch of scorn, 
Sweet-hearted, you, whose light-blue eyes 
Are tender over drowning flies. 

You tell me, doubt is Devil-born. 

I know not : one indeed I knew 
In many a subtle question versed, 
Who touch'd a jarring lyre at first. 

But ever strove to make it true: 

Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds, 

At last he beat his music out. 

There lives more faith in honest doubt. 
Believe me, than in half the creeds. 

He fought his doubts and gather'd strength, 
He would not make his judgment blind, 
He faced the spectres of the mind 

And laid them: thus he came at length 

To find a stronger faith his own ; 
And Power was with him in the night. 
Which makes the darkness and the light, 

And dwells not iu the light alone. 

But in the darkness and the cloud, 
As over Sinai's peaks of old. 
While Israel made their gods of gold, 

Altho' the trumpet blew so loud. 

XCVI. 

Mv love has talk'd with rocks and trees ; 
He finds on misty mountain-ground 
His own vast shadow glory-crovm'd ; 

He sees himself in all he sees. 

Two partners of a married life, 

I look'd on these, and thought of thee 
In vastness and in mysterv. 

And of my spirit as of a wife. 



122 



IN MEMORIARI. 



These two — they dwelt with eye ou eye, 
Their hearts of old have beat iu tune, 
Their meetings made December June, 

Their every parting was to die. 

Their love has never past away ; 
The days she never can forget 
Are earnest that he loves her yet, 

Whate'er the faithless people say. 

Her life is lone, he sits apart, 
He loves her yet, she will not weep,- 
Tho' rapt in matters dark and deep 

He seems to slight her simple heart. 

He thrids the labyrinth of the mind, 
He reads the secret of the star, 
He seems so near and yet so far. 

He looks so cold: she thinks him kind. 

She keeps the gift of years before, 

A wither'd violet is her bliss ; 

She knows not what his greatness is: 
For that, for all, she loves him more. 

For him she plays, to him she sings 
Of early faith and plighted vows ; 
She knows but matters of the house, 

And he, he knows a thousand thiugs. 

Her faith is fixt and cannot move, 
She darkly feels him great and wise, 
She dwells on him with faithful eyes, 

" I cannot understand : I love." 

XCVII. 

You leave us : you will see the Ehine, 
And those fair hills I sail'd below, 
When I was there with him ; and go 

By summer belts of wheat and vine 

To where he breathed his latest breath, 
That City. All her splendor seems 
No livelier than the wisp that gleams 

On Lethe in the eyes of Death. 

Let her great Danube rolling fair 
Enwind her isles, unmark'd of me : 
I have not seen, I will not see 

Vienna; rather dream that there, 

A treble darkness, Evil haunts 

The birth, the bridal ; friend from friend 

Is oftener parted, fathers bend 
Above more graves, a thousand wants 

Gnarr at the heels of men, and prey 
By each cold hearth, and sadness flings 
Her shadow ou the blaze of kings : 

And yet myself have heard him say, 

That not in any mother town 
With statelier progress to and fro 
The double tides of chariots flow 

By park and suburb under brown 

Of lustier leaves; nor more content, 
He told me, lives in any crowd. 
When all is gay with lamps, and loud 

With sport and song, in booth and tent. 

Imperial halls, or open plain ; 

And wheels the circled dance, and breaks 

The rocket molten into flakes 
Of crimson or iu emerald rain. 



XCVIIL 

RiSEST thou thus, dim dawn, again, 
So loud with voices of the birds. 
So thick with lowings of the herds. 

Day, when I lost the flower of men ; 

Who tremblest thro' thy darkling red 
On yon swoll'n brook that bubbles fast 
By meadows breathing of the past. 

And woodlands holy to the dead ; 

Who murmurest in the foliaged eaves 
A song that slights the coming care, 
And Autumn laying here and there 

A flery finger on the leaves ; 

Who wakenest with thy balmy breath, 
To myriads on the genial earth. 
Memories of bridal, or of birth. 

And unto myriads more, of death. 

O, wheresoever those may be, 
Betwixt the slumber of the poles, 
To-day they count as kindred souls ; 

They know me not, but mourn with me. 

XCIX. 

I CLIMB the hill: from end to end 
Of all the landscape underneath, 
I find no place that does not breathe 

Some gracious memory of my friend ; 

No gray old grange, or lonely fold, 
Or low morass and whispering reed. 
Or simple stile from mead to mead, 

Or sheepwalk up the windy wold; 

No hoary knoll of ash and haw 
That hears the latest linnet trill, 
Nor quarry trench'd along the hill. 

And haunted by the wrangling daw; 

Nor runlet tinkling from the rock ; 
Nor pastoral rivulet that swerves 
To left and right thro' meadowy curves, 

That feed the mothers of the flock ; 

But each has pleased a kindred eye. 
And each reflects a kindlier day; 
And, leaving these, to pass away, 

I think once more he seems to die. 

C. 

Unwatch't), the garden bough shall sway, 
The tender blossom flutter down. 
Unloved, that beech will gather brown, 

This maple burn itself away ; 

Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair, 
Ray round with flames her disk of seed, 
And many a rose-carnation feed 

With summer spice the humming air ; 

Unloved, by many a sandy bar. 
The brook shall babble down the plain, 
At noon, or when the lesser wain 

Is twisting round the polar star; 

Uncared for, gird the windy grove. 
And flood the haunts of hern and crake; 
Or into silver arrows break 

The sailing moon in creek and cove; 

Till from the garden and the wild 

A fresh association blow, 

And year by year the landscape grow 
Familiar to the stranger's child ; 



IN MEMOEIAM. 



123 



As year by year the laborer tills 
His wonted glebe, or lops the glades ; 
Aud yea? by year our memory fades 

From all the circle of the hills. 

CI. 

We leave the well-beloved place 
Where first we gazed upon the sky; 
The roofs, that heard our earliest cry, 

Will shelter one of stranger race. 

We go, but ere we go from home. 
As down the garden-walks I move. 
Two spirits of a diverse love 

Contend for loving masterdom. 

One whispers, here thy boyhood snug 
Long since its matin song, aud heard 
The low love-language of the bird 

In native hazels tassel-hung. 

The other answers, " Yea, but here 
Thy feet have strayed in after hours 
With thy lost frieud among the bowers, 

And this hath made them trebly dear." 

These two have striven half the day. 
And each prefers his separate claim, 
Poor rivals in a losing game. 

That will not yield each other way. 

I turn to go: my feet are set 

To leave the pleasant fields aud farms ; 

They mix in one another's arms 
To one pure image of regret. 

CII. 

On that last night before we went 
From out the doors where I was bred, 
I dream'd a vision of the dead, 

Which left my after-moru content. 

Methought I dwelt within a hall, 
And maidens with me : distant hills 
From hidden summits fed with rills 

A river sliding by the wall. 

The hall with harp and carol rang. 
They sang of what is wise and good 
And graceful. In the centre stood 

A statue veil'd, to which they sang; 

And which, tho' veil'd, was knowm to me. 
The shape of him I loved, and love 
Forever: then flew in a dove 

Aud brought a summons from the sea: 

And when they learnt that I must go, 
They wept aud wail'd, but led the way 
To where a little shallop lay 

At anchor iu the flood below ; 

And on by many a level mead. 

And shadowing bluff that made the bank? 

We glided winding under ranks 
Of iris, and the golden reed ; 

And still as vaster grew the shore. 
And roll'd the floods in grander space, 
The maidens gather'd strength and grace 

And presence, lordlier than before; 

And I myself, who sat apart 

And watch'd them, wax'd in every limb ; 

I felt the thews of Anakim, 
The pulses of a Titan's heart ; 



As one would sing the death of vi^ar, 
Aud one would chant the history 
Of that great race, which is to be. 

And one the shaping of a star ; 

Until the forward-creeping tides 
Began to foam, and we to draw. 
From deep to deep, to where we saw 

A great ship lift her shiuiug sides. 

The man we loved was there on deck. 
But thrice as large as man he bent 
To greet us. Up the side I went, 

And fell iu silence on his neck : 

Whereat those maidens with one mind 
Bewail'd their lot ; I did them wrong : 
"We served thee here," they said, "so louj 

And wilt thou leave us uow behind ?" 

So rapt I was, they could not win 

An answer from my lips, but he 

Replying, "Enter likewise yc 
And go with us:" they enter'd in. 

Aud while the wind began to sweep 
A music out of sheet aud shroud. 
We steer'd her toward a crimson cloud 

That laudlike slept along the deep. 

cm. 

TuE time draws near the birth^f Christ : 
The moon is hid, the night is still ; 
A single church below the hill 

Is pealing, folded in the mist. 

A single peal of bells below. 
That wakens at this hour of rest 
A single murmur in the breast, 

That these are not the bells I know. 

Like strangers' voices here they sound, 
In lands where not a memory strays. 
Nor landmark breathes of other days, 

But all is new unhallow'd ground. 

CIV. 

This holly by the cottage-eave. 
To-night, ungather'd, shall it stand : 
We live within the stranger's land, 

And strangely falls our Christmas-eve. 

Our father's dust is left alone 

Aud silent under other snows ; 

There in due time the woodbine blows. 
The violet comes, but we are gone. 

No more shall wayward grief abuse 
The genial hour with mask aud mime; 
For chauge of place, like growth of time. 

Has broke the bond of dying use. 

Let cares that petty shadows cast. 
By which our lives are chiefly proved, 
A little spare the night I loved, 

And hold it solemn to the past. 

But let no footstep beat the floor. 
Nor bowl of wassail mantle warm ; 
For who would keep an ancient form 

Thro' which the spirit breathes no more ? 

Be neither song, nor game, nor feast ; 

Nor harp be touch'd, nor flute be blown ; 

No dance, no motion, save alone 
What lightens in the lucid east 



124 



IN MEMOKIAM. 



Of rising worlds by yonder wood. 

Long sleeps the summer in the seed; 

Kun out your measured arcs, and lead 
The closing cycle rich in good. 

CV. 

Ring out wild bells to the wild sky, 
The flying cloud, the frosty light : 
The year is dying in the night ; 

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. 

Ring out the old, ring in the new, 
Ring, happy bells, across the snow : 
The year is going, let him go ; 

Ring out the false, ring in the true. 

Ring out the grief that saps the mind, 
For those that here we see no more ; 
Ring out the feud of rich and poor, 

Ring in redress to all mankind. 

Ring out a slowly dying cause. 
And ancient forms of party strife ; 
Ring in the nobler modes of life, 

With sweeter manners, purer laws. 

Ring out the want, the care, the sin, 
The faithless coldness of the times ; 
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes. 

But ring the fuller minstrel in. 

Ring out faHe pride in place and blood. 
The civic slander and the spite ; 
Ring in the love of truth and right. 

Ring in the common love of good. 

Ring out old shapes of foul disease ; 

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold ; 

Ring out the thousand wars of old. 
Ring in the thousand years of peace. 

Ring in the valiant man and free. 
The larger heart, the kindlier hand ; 
Ring out the darkness of the land, 

Ring in the Christ that is to be. 

CVI. 

It is the day when he was born, 

A bitter day that early sank 

Behind a purple-frosty bank 
Of vapor, leaving night forlorn. 

The time admits not flowers or leaves 
To deck the banquet. Fiercely flies 
The blast of North and East, and ice 

Makes daggers at the sharpen'd eaves. 

And bristles all the brakes and thorns 
To yon hard crescent, as she hangs 
Above the wood which grides and clangs 

Its leafless ribs and iron horns 

Together, in the drifts that pass 

To darken on the rolling brine 

That breaks the coast. But fetch the wine, 
Arrange the board and brim the glass ; 

Bring in great logs and let them lie, 

To make a solid core of heat ; 

Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat 
Of all things ev'n as he were by ; 

We keep the day. With festal cheer, 
With books and music, surely we 
Will drink to him whate'er he be. 

And sing the songs he loved to hear. 



CVII. 
I WILL not shut me from my kind, 

And, lest I stiffen into stone, 

I will not eat my heart alone, 
Nor feed with sighs a passing wind: , 

What profit lies in barren faith. 
And vacant yearning, tho' with might 
To scale the heaven's highest height. 

Or dive below the wells of Death ? 

What find I in the highest place. 
But mine own phantom chanting hymns ? 
And on the depths of death there swims 

The reflex of a human face. 

r '11 rather take what fruit may be 
Of sorrow under human skies : 
'T is held that sorrow makes us wise, 

Whatever wisdom sleep with thee. 

cvin. 

HEAET-AFPLtTENOE in discursive talk 
From household fountains never dry; 
The critic clearness of an eye, 

That saw thro' all the Muses' walk; 

Seraphic intellect and force 

To seize and throw the doubts of man ; 

Impassion'd logic, which outran 
The hearer in its fiery course; 

High nature amorous of the good. 
But touch'd with no ascetic gloom ; 
And passion pure in snowy bloom 

Thro' all the years of April blood ; 

A love of freedom rarely felt, 
Of freedom in her regal seat 
Of England ; not the school-boy heat. 

The blind hysterics of the Celt ; 

And manhood fused with female grace 
In such a sort, the child would twine 
A trustful hand, uuask'd, in thine, 

And find his comfort in thy face ; 

All these have been, and thee mine eyes 
Have look'd on : if they look'd in vain. 
My shame is greater who remain. 

Nor let thy wisdom make me wise. 

CIX. 

Thy converse drew us with delight. 
The men of rathe and riper years : 
The feeble soul, a haunt of fears, 

Forgot his weakness in thy sight. 

On thee the loyal-hearted hung. 
The proud was half disarm'd of pride. 
Nor cared the serpent at thy side 

To flicker with his double tongue. 

The stern were mild when thou wert by, 
The flippant put himself to school 
And heard thee, and the brazen fool 

Was soften'd, and he knew not why ; 

While I, thy dearest, sat apart. 
And felt thy triumph was as mine ; 
And loved them more, that they wefe thine. 

The graceful tact, the Christian art; 

Not mine the sweetness or the skill 
But mine the love that will not tire, 
And, born of love, the vague desire 

That spurs an imitative will. 



IN MEMORIAM. 



12r 



ex. 

The churl in spirit, np or down 
Along the scale of ranks, thro' all, 
To him who grasps a golden ball. 

By blood a king, at heart a clown ; 

The churl in spirit, howe'er he veil 
His want in forms for fashion's sake, 
Will let his coltish nature break 

At seasons thro' the gilded pale: 

For who can always act ? but he, • 
To whom a thousand memories call, 
Not being less but more than all 

The gentleness he seem'd to be, 

Best seem'd the thing he was, and join'd 
Each office of the social hour 
To noble manners, as the flower 

And native growth of noble mind : 

Nor ever narro%vness or spite, 
Or villain fancy fleeting by, 
Drew in the expression of an eye, 

Where God and Nature met in light ; 

And thus he bore without abuse 
The grand old name of gentleman. 
Defamed by every charlatan, 

And soil'd with all ignoble use. 

CXI. 
High wisdom holds my wisdom less, 

That I, who gaze with temperate eyes 

On glorious insufficiencies. 
Set light by narrower perfectness. 

But thou, that flllest all the room 
Of all my love, art reason why 
I seem to cast a careless eye 

On souls, the lesser lords of doom. 

For what wert thou ? some novel power 
Sprang up forever at a touch, 
And hope could never hope too much, 

In watching thee from hour to hour. 

Large elements in order brought. 
And tracts of calm from tempest made, 
And world-wide fluctuation sway'd 

In vassal tides that follow'd thought. 

CXII. 

'T IS held that sorrow makes us wise : 
Yet how much wisdom sleeps with thee 
Which not alone had guided me, 

But served the seasons that may rise ; 

For can I doubt who knew thee keen 
In intellect, with force and skill 
To strive, to fashion, to fulfil — 

I doubt not what thou wouldst have been: 

A life in civic action warm, 
A soul on highest mission sent, 
A potent voice of Parliament, 

A pillar steadfast in the storm, 

Should licensed boldness gather force, 
Becoming, when the time has birth, 
A lever to uplift the earth 

And roll it in another course, 

With thousand shocks that come and go, 
With agonies, with energies. 
With overthrowiugs, and with cries, 

And undulations to and fro. 



CXIII. 

Who loves not Knowledge ? Who shall rail 
Against her beauty? May she mix 
With men and prosper 1 Who shall fix 

Her pillars? Let her work prevail. 

But on her forehead sits a fire: 
She sets her forward countenance 
And leaps into the future chance, 

Submitting all things to desire. 

Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain. 
She cannot fight the fear of death. 
What is she, cut from love and faith. 

But some wild Pallas from the brain 

Of Demons ? flery-hot to burst 
All barriers in her onward race 
For power. Let her know her place ; 

She is the second, not the first. 

A higher hand must make her mild. 
If all be not in vain : and guide 
Her footsteps, moving side by side 

With wisdom, like the younger child : 

For she is earthly of the mind, 
But Wisdom heavenly of the soul. 
O friend, who earnest to thy goal 

So early, leaving me behind, 

I would the great world grew like thee, 
Who grewest not alone in power 
And knowledge, but by year and hour 

In reverence and in charity. 

CXIV. 

Now fades the last long streak of snow. 
Now bourgeons every maze of quick 
About the flowering squares, and thick 

By ashen roots the violets blow. 

Now rings the woodland loud and long. 
The distance takes a lovelier hue. 
And drown'd in yonder living blue 

The lark becomes a sightless song. 

Now dance the lights on lawn and lea. 
The flocks are whiter down the vale, 
• And milkier every milky sail 
On winding stream or distant sea; 

Where now the seamew pipes, or dives 
In yonder gleaming green, and fly 
The happy birds, that change their sky 

To build and brood ; that live their lives 

From land to land : and in my breast 
Spring wakens too ; and my regret 
Becomes an April violet, 

And buds and blossoms like the rest. 

OXV. 

Is it, then, regret for buried time 
That keenlier in sweet April wakes. 
And meets the year, and gives and takes 

The colors of the crescent prime ? 

Not all : the songs, the stirring air. 
The life re-orient out of dust, 
Cry thro' the sense to hearten trust 

In that which made the world so fair. 

Not all regret : the face will shine 

Upon me, while I muse alone ; 

And that dear voice I once have known 
Still speak to me of me and mine : 



126 



IN MEMORIAM. 



Yet less of sorrow lives In me 
For days of happy commune dead , 
Less yearning for tiie friendship fled, 

Than some strong bond whicli is to be. 

CXVI. 

DATS and hours, your work is this, 
To hold me from my proper place, 
A little while from his embrace, 

For fuller gain of after bliss ; 

That out of distance might ensue 

Desire ot nearness doubly sweet ; 

And unto meeting when we meet, 
Delight a hundred-fold accrue, 

For every grain of sand that runs. 
And every span of shade that steals, 
And every kiss of toothed wheels, 

And all the courses of the suns. 

CXVII. 

Contemplate all this work of Time, 

The giant laboring in his youth.; 

Wor dream of human love and truth, 
As dying Nature's earth and lime ; 

But trust that those we call the dead 

Are breathers of an ampler day. 

Forever nobler ends. They say. 
The solid earth whereon we tread 

In tracts of fluent heat began. 
And grew to seeming-random forms, 
The seeming prey of cyclic storms. 

Till at the last arose the man ; 

Who throve and branch'd from clime to clime 

The herald of a higher race, 

And of himself in higher place 
If so he type this work of time 

Within himself, from more to more : 
Or, crown'd with attributes of woe 
Like glories, move his course, and show 

That life is not as idle ore. 

But iron dug from central gloom, 
And heated hot with burning fears, 
And dipt in baths of hissing tears. 

And batter'd with the shocks of doom 

To shape and use. Arise and fly 
The reeling Faun, the sensual feast ; 
Move upward, working out the beast. 

And let the ape and tiger die. 

CXVIIL 

Doors, where my heart was used to beat 
So quickly, not as one that weeps 
I come once more; the city sleeps; 

1 smell the meadow in the street ; 

I hear a chirp of birds ; I see 

Betwixt the black fronts long-withdrawn 

A light-bine lane of early dawn. 
And think of early days and thee. 

And bless thee, for thy lips are bland. 
And bright the friendship of thine eye : 
And in my thoughts with scarce a sigh- 

I take the pressure of thine hand. 

CXIX. 

I TRUST I h.ave not w.asted breath; 
I think we are not wholly brain. 
Magnetic mockeries; not in vain. 

Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death ; 



Not only cunning casts in clay : 
Let Science prove we are, and then 
What matters Science unto men, 

At least to me? I would not stay. 

Let him, the wiser man who springs 
Hereafter, up from childhood shape 
His action, like the greater ape, 

But I was born to other things. 

cxx. 

Sad Hesper o'er the buried sun, 
And ready, thou, to die with him, 
Thou watchest all things ever dim 

And dimmer, and a glory done : 

The team is loosen'd from the wain. 
The boat is drawn upon the shore ; 
Thou listenest to the closing door. 

And life is darken'd in the brain. 

Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night. 
By thee the world's great work is heard 
Beginning, and the wakeful bird: 

Behind thee comes the greater light : 

The market boat is on the stream. 
And voices hail it from the brink; 
Thou hear'st the village hammer clink. 

And see'st the moving of the team. 

Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name 
For what is one, the first, thdlast. 
Thou, like my present and my past. 

Thy place is changed ; thou art the same. 

CXXI. 

O, WAST thou with me, dearest, then. 
While I rose up against my doom. 
And yearn'd to burst the folded gloom, 

To bare the eternal Heavens again, 

To feel once more, in placid awe, 

The strong imagination roll 

A sphere of stars about ray soul, 
In all her motion one with law. 

If thou wert with me, and the grave 
Divide us not, be with me now. 
And enter in at breast and brow, 

Till all my blood, a fuller wave, 

Be qnicken'd with a livelier breath. 

And like an inconsiderate boy, 

As in the former flash of joy, 
I slip the thoughts of life and death : 

And all the breeze of Fancy blows. 
And every dew-drop paints a bow. 
The wizard lightnings deeply glow, 

And every thought breaks out a rose. 

CXXIL 

There rolls the deep where grew the tree. 

O earth, what changes thou hast seen ! 

There where the long street roars, hath been 
The stillness of the central sea. 

The hills are shadows, and they flow 
From form to form, and nothing stands ; 
They melt like mist, the solid lands, 

Like clouds they shape themselves and go. 

But in my spirit will I dwell, 

And dream my dream, and hold it true ; 

For tho' my lips may breathe adien, 
I cannot think the thing farewell. 



IN MEMORIAM. 



127 



CXXIII. 

That which we dare invoke to bless ; 

Our clearest faith; our ghastliest doubt; 

He, They, One, All ; within, without ; 
The Power in darkness whom we guess ; 

I found Him not in world or snn, 
Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye: 
Nor thro' the questions men may try, 

The petty cobwebs we have spun: 

If e'er, when faith had fall'n asleep, 
I heard a voice, " Believe no more," 
And heard an ever-breaking shore 

That tumbled in the Godless deep; 

A warmth within the breast would melt 
The freezing reason's colder part. 
And like a man in wrath the heart 

Stood up and answer'd, "I have felt." 

No, like a child in doubt and fear: 
But that blind clamor made me wise ', 
Then was I as a child that cries, 

But, crying, knows his father near ; 

And what I am beheld again 
What is, and no man understands ; 
And out of darkness came the hands 

That reach thro' nature, moulding men. 

CXXIV. 

Whatevbr I have said or sung, 
Some bitter notes my harp would give, 
Yea, tho' there often seem'd to live 

A contradiction on the tongue, 

Yet Hope had never lost her youth; 

She did but look thro' dimmer eyes ; 

Or Love but play'd with gracious lies 
Because he felt so fix'd in truth: 

And if the song were full of care, 
He breathed the spirit of the song ; 
And if the words were sweet and strong, 

He set his royal signet there ; 

Abiding with me till I sail 
To seek thee on the mystic deeps, 
And this electric force, that keeps 

A thousand pulses dancing, fail. 

cxxv. 

Love is and was my Lord and King, 
And in his presence I attend 
To hear the tidings of my friend. 

Which every hour his couriers bring. 

Love is and was my King and Lord, 
And will be, tho' as yet I keep 
Within his court on earth, and sleep 

Encompass'd by his faithful guard, 

And hear at times a sentinel 
Who moves about from place to place. 
And whispers to the worlds of space. 

In the deep night,'that all is well. 

CXXVI. 

And all is well, tho' faith and form 
Be sunder'd in the night of fear : 
Well roars the storm to those that hear 

A deeper voice across the storm, 

Proclaiming social truth shall spread, 
And justice, ev'n tho' thrice again 
The red fool-fury of the Seine 

Should pile her barricades with dead. 



But ill for him that wears a crown. 
And him, the lazar, in his rags : 
They tremble, the sustaining crags; 

The spires of ice are toppled down, 

And molten up, and roar in flood ; 
The fortress crashes from on high. 
The brute earth lightens to the sky. 

And the great .^ou sinks in blood. 

And compass'd by the fires of Hell; 
While thou, dear spirit, happy star, 
O'erlook'st the tumult from afar, 

And smilest, knowing all is well. 

CXXVII. 

TuE love that rose on stronger wings, 
Unpalsied when we met with Death, 
Is comrade of the lesser faith 

That sees the course of human things. 

No doubt vast eddies in the flood 
Of onward time shall yet be made, 
And throned races may degrade; 

Yet, O ye mysteries of good. 

Wild Hours that fly with Hope and Fear, 
If all your office had to do 
With old results that look like new; 

If this were all your mission here. 

To draw, to sheathe a useless sword. 
To fool the crowd with glorious lies, 
To cleave a creed in sects and cries, 

To change the bearing of a word, 

To shift an arbitrary power. 
To cramp the student at his desk. 
To make old bareness picturesque 

And tuft with grass a feudal tower; 

Why then my scorn might well descend 
On you and yours. I see in part 
That all, as in some piece of art. 

Is toil cooperant to an end. 

CXXVIII. 

Dear friend, far off", my lost desire. 
So far, so near in woe and weal ; 

loved the most, when most I feel 
There is a lower and a higher ; 

Known and unknovra ; human, divine ; 

Sweet human hand and lips and eye ; 

Dear heavenly friend that canst not die, 
Mine, mine, forever, ever mine ; 

Strange friend, past, present, and to be; 

Love deeplier, darklier understood ; 

Behold, I dream a dream of good, 
And mingle all the world with thee. 

CXXIX. 

Thy voice is on the rolling air; 

1 hear thee where the waters run; 
Thou staudest in the rising sun. 

And in the setting thou art fair. 

What art thou then ? I cannot guess ; 
But tho' I seem in star and flower 
To feel thee some diff'usive power, 

I do not therefore love thee less: 

My love involves the love before ; 

My love is vaster passion now ; 

Tho' mix'd with God and Nature thop., 
I seem to love thee more and more. 



128 



IN MEMOEIAM. 



Far ofl" thou art, but ever nigh ; 

I have thee still, and I rejoice ; 

I prosper, circled with thy voice; 
I shall not lose thee tho' I die. 

CXXX. 

O LiTiNG will that Shalt endure ' 
When all that seems shall suffer shock, 
Rise in the spiritual rock, 

Flow thro' our deeds and make them pure. 

That we may lift from out of dust 
A voice as unto him that hears, 
A cry above the conquer'd years 

To one that with us works, and trusts, 

With faith that comes of self-control, 
The truths that never can be proved 
Until we close with all we loved, 

And all we flow from, soul in soul. 



O TRUE and tried, so well and long, 

Demand not thou a marriage lay; 

In that it is thy marriage day 
Is music more than any song. 

Nor have I felt so mucli of bliss 
Since first he told me that he loved 
A daughter of our house ; nor proved 

Since that dark day a day like this ; 

Tho' I since then have number'd o'er 
Some thrice three years : they went and came, 
Remade the blood and changed the frame, 

And yet is love not less, but more ; 

No longer caring to embalm 

In dying songs a dead regret. 

But like a statue solid-set. 
And moulded in colossal calm. 

Regret is dead, but love is more 
Than in the summers that are flown, 
For I myself with these have grown 

To something greater than before ; 

Which makes appear the songs I made 
As echoes out of weaker times, 
As half but idle brawling rhymes. 

The sport of random sun and shade. 

But where is she, the bridal flower, 
That must be made a wife ere noon? 
She enters, glowing like the moon 

Of Eden on its bridal bower : 

On me she bends her blissful eyes. 
And then on thee ; they meet thy look 
And brighten like the star that shook 

Betwixt the palms of paradise. 

O when her life was yet in bud. 

He too foretold the perfect rose. 

For thee she grew, for thee she grows 
Forever, and as fair as good. 

And thou art worthy ; full of power ; 
As gentle ; liberal-minded, great. 
Consistent ; wearing all that weight 

Of learning lightly like a flower. 

But now set out: the noon is near. 
And I must give away the bride ; 
She fears not, or. with thee beside 

And me behind her, will not fear; 



For I that danced her on my knee, " 
That watch'd her on her nurse's arm. 
That shielded all her life from harm, 

At last must part with her to thee ; 

Now waiting to be made a wife. 
Her feet, my darling, on the dead ; 
Their pensive tablets round her head, 

And the most living words of life 

Breathed in her ear. The ring is on. 
The "wilt thou," auswer'd, and again 
The "wilt thou" ask'd, till out of twain 

Her sweet " I will " has made ye one. 

Now sign your names, which shall be rend, 
Mute symbols of a joyful morn, 
By village eyes as yet unborn ; 

The names are sign'd, and overhead 

Begins the clash and clang that tells 
The joy to every wandering breeze ; 
The blind wall rocks, and on the trees 

The dead leaf trembles to the bells. 

O happy hour, and happier hours 
Await them. Many a merry face 
Salutes them — maidens of the place, 

That pelt us in the porch with flowers. 

O happy hour, behold the bride 
With him to whom her hand I gave. 
They leave the porch, they pass the grave 

That has to-day its sunny side. 

To-day the grave is bright for me, 
For them the light of life increased, 
Who stay to share the morning feast, 

Who rest to-night beside the sea. 

Let all my genial spirits advance 
To meet and greet a whiter sun ; 
My drooping memory will not shun 

The foaming grape of eastern France. 

It circles round, and fancy plays, 
And hearts are warm'd, and faces bloom. 
As drinking health to bride and groom 

We wish them store of happy days. 

Nor coxmt me all to blame if I 
Conjecture of a stiller guest, 
Perchance, perchance, among the rest, 

And, tho' in silence, wishing joy. 

But they must go, the time draws on. 
And those white-favor'd horses wait ; . 
They rise, but linger; it is late; 

Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone. 

A shade falls on us like the dark 
From little cloudlets on the grass. 
But sweeps away as out we pass 

To range the woods, to roam the park, 

Discussing how their courtship grew. 
And talk of others that are wed. 
And how she look'd, and what he said. 

And back we come at fall of dew. 

Again the feast, the speech, the glee. 
The shade of passing thought, the wealth 
Of words and wit, the double health. 

The crovsTjing cup, the three-times-three, 



MAUD. 



12i) 



And last the dance ; — till I retire : 
Dumb is that tower which spake so loud, 
Aud high in heaven the streaming cloud, 

And on the downs a rising Are; 

And rise, O moon, from yonder down, 
Till over down and over dale 
All night the shining vapor sail 

And pass the silent-lighted town, 

The white-faced halls, the glancing rills, 
And catch at every mountain head, 
Aud o'er the friths that branch and spread 

Their sleeping silver thro' the hills; 

And touch with shade the bridal doors. 
With tender gloom the roof, the wall ; 
And breaking let the splendor fall 

To spangle all the happy shores 

By which they rest, and ocean sounds. 
And, star and system rolling past, 
A soul shall draw from out the vast 

And strike his being into bounds, 



Aud, moved thro' life of lower phase. 
Result in man, be born and think. 
And act and love, a closer link 

Betwixt us and the crowning race 

Of those that, eye to eye, shall look 
On knowledge ; under whose command 
Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand 

Is Nature like an open book; 

No longer half-akin to brute, 
For all we thought and loved and did, 
Aud hoped, and suffer'd, is but seed 

Of what in them is flower and fruit ; 

Whereof the man, that with me trod 
This planet, was a noble type 
Appearing ere the times were ripe, 

That friend of mine who lives in God, 

That God, which ever lives and loves. 
One God, one law, one element, 
Aud one far-off divine event. 

To which the whole creation moves. 



MAUD, AND OTHER POEMS 



MAUD. 

I. 
1. 

I HATE the dreadful hollow behind the little wood. 
Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath. 
The red-ribb'd ledges drip with U silent horror of blood. 
And Echo there, whatever is ask'd her, answers "Death." 



For there in the ghastly pit long since a body was found. 
His who had given me life— O father ! O God ! was it well ?— 
Mangled, aud flatten'd, and crush'd, and dinted into the ground: 
There yet lies the rock that fell with him when he fell. 

3. 

Did he fling himself down ? who knows ? for a vast speculation had fail'd. 
And ever he mutter'd and madden'd, and ever wann'd with despair. 
And out he walk'd when the wind like a broken worldling wail'd, 
And the flying gold of the ruin'd woodlands drove thro' the air. 



I remember the time, for the roots ,of my hair were stirr'd 
By a shuffled step, by a dead weight trail'd, by a whisper'd fright. 
And my pulses closed their gates with a shock on my heart as I heard 
The shrill-edged shriek of a mother divide the shuddering night. 



Villany somewhere ! whose ? One says, we are villains all. 
Not he : his honest fame should at least by me be maintain'd : 
But that old man, now lord of the broad estate and the Hall, 
Dropt off gorged from a scheme that had left us ilaccid aud drain'd. 



6. 

Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace? we have made them a curse, 

Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its own ; 

And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or worse 

Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his own hearthstone ? 

8 



130 MAUD. 

_ _ 

/ But these are the days of advance, the works of the men of mind, 

When who but a fool would have faith in a tradesman's ware or his word ? 
Is it peace or war ? Civil war, as I think, and that of a kind 
The viler, as underhand, not openly bearing the sword. 



Sooner or later I too may passively take the print 

Of the goldeu age— why not ? I have neither hope nor trust ; 

May make my heart as a millstone, set my face as a flint. 

Cheat and be cheated, and die : who knows ? we are ashes and dust. 



Peace sitting under her olive, and slurring the days gone by, 
When the poor are hovell'd and hustled together, each sex, like swine, 
When only the ledger lives, and when only not all men lie ; 
Peace in her vineyard — yes ! — but a company forges the wine. 

10. 

And the vitriol madness flushes up in the ruffian's head, 
Till the filthy by-lane rings to the yell of the trampled wife. 
While chalk and alum and plaster are sold to the poor for bread, 
And the spirit of murder works in the very means of life. 

11. 

And Sleep must lie down arm'd, for the villanous centre-bits 
Grind on the wakeful ear in the hush of the moonless nights, 
While another is cheating the sick of a few last gasps, as he sits 
To pestle a poisou'd poison behind his crimson lights. 

12. 

When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for a burial fee. 
And Timour-Mammon grins on a pile of children's bones. 
Is it peace or war ? better, war ! loud war by land and by sea. 
War with a thousand battles, and shaking a hundred thrones. 

13. 

For I trust if an enemy's fleet came yonder round by the hill, 
And the rushing battle-bolt sang from the three-decker out of the foam. 
That the smooth-faced snub-nosed rogue would leap from his counter and till, 
And strike, if he could, were it but with his cheating yardwand, home. — 

14. 

What ! am I raging alone as my father raged in his mood 1 
Must / too creep to the hollow and dash myself down and die 
Rather than hold by the law that I made, nevermore to brood 
On a horror of shatter'd limbs and a wretched swindler's lie ? 

15, 

Would there be sorrow for me.? there was love in the passionate shriek. 
Love for the silent thing that had made false haste to the grave- 
Wrapt in a cloak, as I saw him, and thought he would rise and speak 
And rave at the lie and the liar, ah God, as he used to rave. 

16. 

I am sick of the Hall and the hill, I am sick of the moor and the main. 
Why should I stay ? can a sweeter chante ever come to me here ? 
O, having the nerves of motion as well as the nerves of pain, 
Were it not wise if I fled from the place and the pit and the fear ? 

17. 

There are workmen up at the Hall : they are coming back from abroad ; 
The dark old place will be gilt by the touch of a millionnaire : 
I have heard, I know not whence, of the singular beauty of Maud ; 
I play'd with the girl when a child; she promised then to be fair. 

18. 

Maud with her venturous climbings and tumbles and childish escapes, 
Maud the delight of the village, the ringing joy of the Hall, 
Maud with her sweet purse-mouth when my father dangled the grapes, 
Maud the beloved of ray mother, the moon-faced darling of all, — 



MAUD. 131 



What is she now? My dreams are bad. She may bring me a curse. 
No, there is fatter game on the moor ; she will let me alone. 
Thanks, for the flend best knows whether woman or man be the worse. 
I will bury myself in my books, and the Devil may pipe to his own. 

II. 
Long have I sigh'd for a calm : God grant I may find it at last ! 
It will never be broken by Maud, she has neither savor nor salt, 
But a cold and clear-cut face, as I found when her carriage past. 
Perfectly beautiful : let it be granted her : where is the fault ? 
All that I saw (for her eyes were downcast, not to be seen) 
Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, 
Dead perfection, no more ; nothing more, if it had not been 
For a chance of travel, a paleness, an hour's defect of the rose, 
Or an underlip, you may call it a little too ripe, too full. 
Or the least little delicate aquiline curve In a sensitive nose. 
From which I escaped heart-free, with the least little touch of spleen. 

III. 

CoLi) and clear-cut face, why come you so cruelly meek, 
Breaking a slumber in which all spleenful folly was drown'd. 
Pale with the golden beam of an eyelash dead on the cheek. 
Passionless, pale, cold face, star-sweet on a gloom profound ; 
Womanlike, taking revenge too deep for a transient wrong 
Done but in thought to your beauty, and ever as pale as before 
Growing and fading and growing upon me without a sound. 
Luminous, gemlike, ghostlike, deathlike, half the night long 
Growing and fading and growing, till I could bear it no more. 
But arose, and all by myself in my own dark garden ground. 
Listening now to the tide in its broad-flung shipwrecking roar. 
Now to the scream of a madden'd beach dragg'd down by the wave, 
Walk'd in a wintry wind by a ghastly glimmer, and found 
The shining daflfodil dead, and Orion low in his grave. 

1. 

A MILLION emeralds break from the ruby-budded lime 
In the little grove where I sit — ah, wherefore cannot I be 
Like things of the season gay, like the bountiful season bland, 
When the far-off sail is blown by the breeze of a softer clime. 
Half-lost in the liquid azure bloom of a crescent of sea. 
The silent sapphire-spangled marriage ring of the land ? 

2. 

Below me, there, is the village, and looks how quiet and small I 
And yet bubbles o'er like a city, with gossip, scandal, and spite; 
And Jack on his alehouse bench has as many lies as a Czar; 
And here on the landward side, by a red rock, glimmers the Hall ; 
And up in the high Hall-garden I see her pass like a light: 
But sorrow seize me if ever that light be my leading star ! 

3. 

When have I bow'd to her father, the wrinkled head of the race ? 

I met her to-day with her brother, but not to her brother I bow'd ; 

I bow'd to his lady-sister as she rode by on the moor; 

But the fire of a foolish pride flash'd over her beautiful face. 

O child, you wrong your beauty, believe it, in being so proud ; 

Your father has wealth well-gotten, and I am nameless and poor. 



I keep but a man and a maid, ever ready to slander and steal ; 

I know it, and smile a hard-set smile, like a stoic, or like 

A wiser epicurean, and let the world have its way: 

For nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal ; 

The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow spear'd by the shrike, 

And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and prey. 

5. 

We are puppets, Man in his pride, and Beauty fair in her flower ; 
Do we move ourselves, or are moved by an unseen hand at a game 
That pushes us off from the board, and others ever succeed ? 
Ah yet, we cannot be kind to each other here for an hour ; 
We whisper, and hint, and chuckle, and grin at a brother's shame ; 
However we brave it out, we men are a little breed. 



132 



MAUD. 



A monstrous eft was of old the Lord and Master of Earth, 
For him did his high sun flame, and his river billowing ran, 
And he felt himself in his force to be Nature's crowning race. 
As nine months go to the shaping an infant ripe for his birth, 
So many a million of ages have gone to the making of man : 
He now is first, but is he the last ? is he not too base ? 



The man of science himself is fonder of glory, and vain, 
An eye well-practised in nature, a spirit bounded and poor; 
The passionate heart of the poet is whirl'd into folly and vice. 
I would not marvel at either, but keep a temperate brain ; 
For not to desire or admire, if a man could learn it, were more 
Than to walk all day like the sultan of old in a garden of spice. 



For the drift ol the Maker is dark, an Isis hid by the veil. 

Who knows the ways of the world, how God will bring them about? 

Our planet is one, the suns are many, the world is wide. 

Shall I weep if a Poland fall ? shall I shriek if a Hungary fail ? 

Or an infant civilization be ruled with rod or with knout? 

I have not made the world, and He that made it will guide. 



Be mine a philosopher's life in the quiet woodland ways, 

Where if I cannot be gay let a passionless peace be my lot, 

Far-ofF from the clamor of liars belied in the hubbub of lies ; 

From the long-neck'd geese of the world that are ever hissing dispraise, 

Because their natures are little, and, whether he heed it or not. 

Where each man walks with his head in a cloud of poisonous flies. 

10. 
And most of all would I flee ft-om the cniel madness of love, 
The honey of poison-flowers and all the measureless ill. 
Ah Maud, you milk-white fawn, you are all unmeet for a wife. 
Your mother is mute in her grave as her image in marble above ; 
Your father is ever in London, you wander about at your will ; 
You have but fed on the roses, and lain in the lilies of life. 



V. 



A VOICE by the cedar-tree. 

In the meadow under the Hall ! 

She is singing an air that is known to me, 

A passionate ballad gallant and gay, 

A martial song like a trumpet's call ! 

Singing alone in the morning of life, 

In the happy morning of life and of May, 

Singing of men that in battle array. 

Ready in heart and ready in hand, 

March with banner and bugle and fife 

To the death, for their native land. 

2. 

Maud with her exquisite face, 
And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky. 
And feet like sunny gems on an English green, 
Maud in the light of her youth and her grace, 
Singing of Death, and of Honor that cannot die, 
Till I well could weep for a tipie so sordid and mean. 
And myself so languid and base. 

3. 

Silence, beautiful voice ! 
Be still, for you only trouble the mind 
■ With a joy in which I cannot rejoice, 
A glory I shall not flnd. 
Still ! I will hear you no more. 
For your sweetness hardly leaves me a choice 
But to move to the meadow and fall before 
Her feet on the meadow grass, and adore, 
Not her, who is neither courtly nor kind, 
Not her, not her, but a voice. 



VI. 

L 

MoENiNG arises stormy and pale, 

No sun, but a wannish glare 

In fold upon fold of hueless cloud. 

And the budded peaks of the wood are bow'd 

Caught and cuft''d by the gale: 

I had fancied it would be fair. 



VVhom but Maud should I meet 

Last night, when the sunset burn'd 

On the blossom'd gable-ends 

At the head of the village street. 

Whom but Maud should I meet? 

And she touch'd my hand with a smile so sweet 

She made me divine amends 

For a courtesy not return'd. 

3. 

And thus a delicate spark 

Of glowing and growing light 

Thro' the livelong hours of the dark 

Kept itself warm in the heart of my dreams, 

Ready to burst in a color'd flame; 

Till at last, when the morning came 

In a cloud, it faded, and seems 

But an ashen-gray delight. 



What if with her sunny hair, 
And smile as sunny as cold. 
She meant to weave me a snare 
Of some coquettish deceit, 



MAUD. 



133 



Cleopatra-like as of old 

To entangle me when we met, 

To have her lion roll iu a silken net, 

And fawn at a victor's feet. 



Ah, what shall I be at fifty 

Should Nature keep me alive, 

If I find the world so bitter 

When I am but twenty-five? 

Yet, if she were not a cheat. 

If Maud were all that she seem'd, 

And her smile were all that I dream'd, 

Then the world were not so bitter 

But a smile could make it sweet. 



What if tho' her eye seem'd full 
Of a kind intent to me, 
What if that dandy-despot, he, 
That jewell'd mass of millineiy, 
That oil'd and curl'd Assyrian Bull 
Smelling of musk and oJ^insolence, 
Her brother, from whom I keep aloof, 
Who wants the finer politic sense 
To mask, tho' but in his own behoof. 
With a glassy smile his brutal scorn, — 
What if he had told her yestermorn 
How prettily for his own sweet sake 
A face of tenderness might be feign'd. 
And a moist mirage iu desert eyes, 
That so, when the rotten hustings shake 
In another mouth to his brazen lies, 
A wretched vote may be gain'd. 

7. 
For a raven ever croaks, at my side, 
Keep watch and ward, keep watch and ward. 
Or thou wilt prove their tooL 
Yea too, myself from myself I guard, 
For often a man's own angry pride 
Is cap and bells for a fool. 



Perhaps the smile and tender tone 

Came out of her pitying womanhood. 

For am I not, am 1 not, here alone 

So many a summer since she died. 

My mother, who was so gentle and good ? 

Living alone iu an empty house. 

Here half-hid in the gleaming wood. 

Where I hear the dead at midday moan. 

And the shrieking rush of the wainscot mouse. 

And my own sad name in corners cried. 

When the shiver of dancing leaves is thrown 

About its echoing chambers wide, 

Till a morbid hate and horror have grown 

Of a world in which I have hardly mixt, 

And a morbid eating lichen fixt 

On a heart half-turn'd to stone. 



heart of stone, are you flesh, and caught 
By that you swore to withstand ? 

For what was it else within me wrought 
But, I fear, the new strong wine of love, 
That made my tongue so stammer and trip 
When I saw the treasured splendor, her hand, 
Come sliding out of her sacred glove, 
And the sunlight broke from her lip ? 

10. 

1 have play'd with her when a child ; 
She remembers it now we meet. 

Ah well, well, well, I may be beguiled 
By some coquettish deceit. 
Yet, if she were not a cheat, 



If Maud were all that she seem'd, 
And her smile had all that I dream'd, 
Then the world were not so bitter 
But a smile could make it sweet. 

VII. 

1. 

Did I hear it half in a doze 
Long since, I know not where ? 

Did I dream it an hour ago. 
When asleep in this arm-chair? 

2. 
Men were drinking together. 

Drinking and talking of me ; 
"Well, if it prove a girl, the boy 

Will have plenty: so let it be." 



Is it an echo of something 
Read with a boy's delight, 

Viziers nodding together 
In some Arabian night? 



Strange, that I hear two men, 

Somewhere, talking of me ; 
"Well, if it prove a girl, my boy 

Will have plenty: so let it be." 

VIII. 

She came to the village church, 

And sat by a pillar alone ; 

An angel watching an urn 

Wept over her, carved iu stone ; 

And once, but once, she lifted her eyes, 

And suddenly, sweetly, strangely blush'd 

To find they were met by my own ; 

And suddenly, sweetly, my heart beat stronger 

And thicker, until I heard no longer 

The snowy-banded, dilettante, 

Delicate-handed priest intone; 

And thought, is it pride, and mused and sigh'd 

"No surely, now it cannot be pride." 

IX. 

I WAS walking a mile. 
More than a mile from the shore. 
The sun look'd out with a smile 
Betwixt the cloud and the moor, 
And riding at set of day 
Over the dark moor land, 
Rapidly riding far away. 
She waved to me with her hand. 
There were two at her side. 
Something flash'd in the sun, 
Down by the hill I saw them ride, 
In a moment they were gone: 
Like a sudden spark 
Sti-uck vainly in the night, 
And back returns the dark 
With no more hope of light. 

X. 

1. 

SioK, am I sick of a jealous dread ? 
Was not one of the two at her side 
This new-made lord, whose splendor plucks 
The slavish hat from the villager's head ? 
Whose old grandfather has lately died, 
Gone to a blacker pit, for whom 
Grimy nakedness dragging his trucks 
And laying his trams in a poison'd gloom 
Wrought, till he crept from a gutted mine 
Master of half a servile shire, 



134 



MAUD. 



And left his coal all turn'd into gold 
To a grandson, first of his noble line, 
Kich in the grace all women desire. 
Strong in the power that all men adore, 
And simper and set their voices lower, 
And soften as if to a girl, and hold 
Awe-striclien breaths at a work divine, 
Seeing his gewgaw castle shine. 
New as his title, built last year, 
There amid perky larches and pine, 
And over the sullen-purple moor 
(Look at it) pricking a cockney ear. 



What, has he found my jewel out? 
For one of the two that rode at her side 
Bound for the Hall, I am sure was he: 
Bound for the Hall, and I think for a bride. 
Blithe would her brother's acceptance be. 
Maud could be gracious too, no doubt, 
To a lord, a captain, a padded shape, 
A bought commission, a waxen face, 
A rabbit mouth that is ever agape — 
Bought ? what is it he cannot buy ? 
And therefore splenetic, personal, base, 
A wounded thing with a rancorous cry. 
At war vyith myself and a wretched race. 
Sick, sick to the heart of life, am I. 



Last week came one to the county town. 
To preach our poor little army down, 
And play the game of the despot kings, 
Tho' the state has done it and thrice as well : 
This broad-brim'd hawker ot holy things. 
Whose ear is stufPd vrith his cotton, and rings 
Even in dreams to the chink of his pence. 
This huckster put down war ! can he tell 
Whether war be a cause or a consequence? 
Put down the passions that make earth Hell ! 
Down with ambition, avarice, pride. 
Jealousy, down ! cut oflf from the mind 
The bitter springs of anger and fear ; 
Down too, down at your own fireside. 
With the evil tongue and the evil ear, 
For each is at war with mankind. 



I wish I could hear again 

The chivalrous battle-song 

That she warbled alone in her joy ! 

I might persuade myself then 

She would not do herself this great wrong 

To take a wanton, dissolute boy 

For a man and leader of men. 



Ah God, for a man with heart, head, hand. 
Like some of the simple great ones gone 
For ever and ever by, 
One still strong man in a blatant land. 
Whatever they call him, what care I, 
Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat, — one 
Who can rule and dare not lie. 



And ah for a man to arise in me, 
That the man I am may cease to be ! 

XL 
1. 

O LET the solid ground 
Not fail beneath my feet 

Before my life has found 
What some have found so sweet; 



Then let come what come maj', 
What matter if I go mad, 
I shall have had my day. 



Let the sweet heavens endure. 
Not close and darken above me 

Before I am quite quite sure 
That there is one to love me ; 

Then let come what come may 

To a life that has been so sad, 

I shall have had my day. 

XII. 
1. 

Birds in the high Hall-garden 
When twilight was falling, 

Maud, Maud, Maud, Maud, ■ 
They were crying and calling. 



Where was Maud? in our wood; 

And I, who else, was with her. 
Gathering woodland lilies. 

Myriads blow together. 



Birds in our woods sang 
Ringing thro' the valleys, 

Maud is here, here, here 
lu among the lilies. 



I kiss'd her slender hana. 
She took the kiss sedately ; 

Maud is not seventeen. 
But she is tall and stately. 

5. 

I to cry out on pride 
Who have won her favor! 

O Maud were sure of Heaven 
If lowliness could save her. 



I know the way she went 
Home with her maiden posy. 

For her feet have touch'd the meadows 
And left the daisies rosy. 

7. 
Birds in the high Hall-garden 

Were crying and calling to her. 
Where is Maud, Maud, Maud, 

One is come to woo her. 



Look, a horse at the door. 
And little King Charles is snarling, 

Go back, my lord, across the moor, 
You are not her darling. 

xni. 
1. 

Sooen'd, to be scorn'd by one that I scorn. 

Is that a matter to make me fret? 

That a calamity hard to be borne ? 

Well, he may live to hate me yet. 

Fool that I am to be vext with his pride ! 

I past him, I was crossing his lands; 

He stood on the path a little aside ; 

His face, as I grant, in spite of spite. 

Has a broad-blown comeliness, red and white. 



MAUD. 



13.') 



And six feet two, as I think, he stands ; 
But his essences turu'd the live air sick. 
And barbarous opulence jewel-thick 
Sunn'd itself on his breast and his hands. 



Who shall call me ungentle, unfair, 
I long'd so heartily then and there 
To give him the grasp of fellowship ; 
But while I past he was humming an air, 
Stopt, and then with a riding whip 
Leisurely tapping a glossy boot. 
And curving a conti;melious lip, 
Gorgonized me from head to foot 
With a stony British stare. 

3. 

Why sits he here in his father's chair? 
That old man never comes to his place: 
Shall I believe him ashamed to be seen ? 
For only once, in the village street. 
Last year, I caught a glimpse of his face, 
A gray old wolf and a lean. 
Scarcely, now, would I call him a cheat ; 
For then, perhaps, as a child of deceit. 
She might by a true descent be untrue ; 
And Maud is as true as Maud is sweet ; 
Tho' I fancy her sweetness only due 
To the sweeter blood by the other side ; 
Her mother has been a thing complete, 
However she came to be so allied. 
And fair without, faithful within, 
Maud to him is nothing akin : 
Some peculiar mystic grace 
Made her only the child of her mother, 
And heap'd the whole inherited sin 
On that huge scapegoat of the race, 
All, all upon the brother. 

4. 
Peace, angry spirit, and let him be I 
Has not his sister smiled on me ? 

XIV. 



Maud has a garden of roses 
And lilies fair on a lawn ; 
There she walks in her state 
And tends upon bed and bower 
And thither I climb'd at dawn 
And stood by her garden gate ; 
A lion ramps at the top, 
He is claspt by a passion-flower. 



Maud's own little oak-room 

(Which Maud, like a precious stone 

Set in the heart of the carveu gloom, 

Lights with herself, when alone 

She sits by her music and books, 

And her brother lingers late 

With a roystering company) looks 

Upon Maud's own garden gate : 

And I thought as I stood, if a hand, as white 

As ocean-foam in the moon, were laid 

On the hasp of the window, and my Delight 

Had a sudden desire, like a glorious ghost, to glide, 

Like a beam of the seventh Heaven, down to my side, 

There were but a step to be made. 

3. 
The fancy flatter'd ray mind, 
And again seem'd overbold ; 
Now I thought that she cared for me, 
Now I thought she was kind 
Only because she was cold. 



I heard no sound where I stood 

But the rivulet on from the lawn 

Running down to my own dark wood; 

Or the voice of the long sea-wave as it swell'd 

Now and then in the dim-gray dawn ; 

But I look'd, and round, all round the house I be- 
held 

The death-white curtain drawn ; 

Felt a horror over me creep, 

Prickle my skin and catch my breath, 

Knew that the death-white curtain meant but sleep, 

Yet I shudder'd and thought like a fool of the slee]) 
of death. 

XV. 

So dark a mind within me dwells. 

And I make myself such evil cheer. 
That if I be dear to some one else. 

Then some one else may have much to fear; 
But if I be dear to some one else, 

Then I should be to myself more dear. 
Shall I not take care of all that I think. 
Yea ev'n of wretched meat and drink. 
If I be dear, 
If I be dear to some one else ? 

XVL 

1. 

This lump of earth has left his estate 

The lighter by the loss of his weight ; 

And so that he find what he went to seek, 

And fulsome Pleasure clog him, and drown 

His heart in the gross mud-honey of town. 

He may stay for a year who has gone for a week: 

But this is the day when I must speak, 

And I see my Oread coming down, 

O this is the day ! 

beautiful creature, what am I 
That I dare to look her way ; 
Think I may hold dominion sweet. 

Lord of the pulse that is lord of her breast, 
And dream of her beauty with lender dread, 
Prom the delicate Arab arch of her feet 
To the grace that, bright and light as the crest 
Of a peacock, sits on her shining head, 
And she knows it not : O, if she knew it. 
To know her beauty might half undo it. 

1 know it the one bright thing to save 
My yet young life in the wilds of Time, 
Perhaps from madness, perhaps from crime 
Perhaps from a selfish grave. 

2. 

What, if she were fasten 'd to this fool lord, 

Dare I bid her abide by her word? 

Should I love her so well if she 

Had given her word to a thing so low? 

Shall I love her as well if she 

Can break her word were it even for me ? 

I trust that it is not so. 



Catch not my breath, O clamorous heart, 
Let not my tongue be a thrall to my eye, 
For I must tell her before we part, 
I must tell her, or die. 

XVII. 

Go not, happy day. 
From the shining fields. 

Go not, happy day. 
Till the maiden yields. 



13G 



MAUD. 



Kosy is the West, 

Kosy is the South, 
Koses are her cheeks, 

And a rose her mouth. 
When the happy Yes 

Falters from her lips, 
Pass and blush the news 

O'er the blowing ships, 
Over blowing seas. 

Over seas at rest. 
Pass the happy news. 

Blush it thro' the West, 
Till the red man dance 

By his red cedar-tree, 
And the red man's babe 

Leap, beyond the sea. 
Blush from West to East, 

Blush from East to West, 
Till the West is East, 

Blush it thro' the West. 
Kosy is the West, 

Rosy is the South, 
Roses are 'her cheeks. 

And a rose her mouth. 

XVIII. 
1. 

I HAVE led her home, my love, my only friend. 

There is none like her, none. 

And never yet so warmly ran my blood 

And sweetly, on and on 

Calming itself to the long-wish'd-for end, 

Full to the banks, close on the promised good. 



None like her, none. 

Just now the dry-tongued laurel's pattering talk 

Seem'd her light foot along the garden walk. 

And shook my heart to think she comes once more ; 

But even then I heard her close the door, 

The gates of heaven are closed, and she is gone. 

3. 
There is none like her, none. 
Nor will be when our summers have deceased. 
O, art thou sighing for Lebanon 
In the long breeze that streams to thy delicious 

East, 
Sighing for Lebanon, 

Dark cedar, tho' thy limbs have here increased, 
Upon a pastoral slope as fair. 
And looking to the South, and fed 
With honey'd rain and delicate air, 
And haunted by the starry head 
Of her whose gentle will has changed my fate. 
And made my life a perfumed altar-flame ; 
And over whom thy darkness must have spread 
With such delight as theirs of old, thy great 
Forefathers of the thomless garden, there 
Shadowing the snow-limb'd Eve from whom she 



Here will I lie, while these long branches sway. 

And you fair stars that crown a happy day 

Go in and out as if at merry play, 

Who am no more so all forlorn. 

As when it seem'd far better to be born 

To labor and the mattock-harden'd hand, 

Than nursed at ease and brought to understand 

A sad astrology, the boundless plan 

That makes you tyrants in your iron skies. 

Innumerable, pitiless, passionless eyes, 

Cold flres, yet with power to burn and brand 

His nothingness into man. 



But now shine on, and what care I, 

Who in this stormy gulf have found a pearl 

The countercharm of space and hollow sky, 

And do accept my madness and would die 

To save from some slight shame one simple girl. 

6. 

Would die ; for sullea-seeming Death may give 

More life to Love than is or ever was 

In our low world, where yet 't is sweet to liv& 

Let no one ask me how it came to pass; 

It seems that I am happy, that to me 

A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass, 

A purer sapphire melts into the sea. 



Not die ; but live a life of truest breath. 

And teach true life to fight with mortal wrongs. 

O, why should Love, like men in drinking-songs. 

Spice his fair banquet with the dust of death ? 

Make answer, Maud my bliss. 

Maud made my Maud by that long lover's kiss, 

Life of my life, wilt thou not answer this ? 

"The dusky strand of Death inwoven here 

With dear Love's tie, makes Love himself more dear. 



Is that enchanted moan only the swell 

Of the long waves that roll in yonder bay? 

And hark the clock within, the silver knell 

Of twelve sweet hours that past in bridal white, 

And died to live, long as my pulses play ; 

But now by this my love has closed her sight 

And given false death her hand, and stol'u away 

To dreamful wastes where footless fancies dwell 

Among the fancies of the golden day. 

May nothing there her maiden grace affright ! 

Dear heart, I feel with thee the drowsy spell. 

My bride to be, my evermore delight. 

My own heart's heart and ownest own farewell; 

It is but for a little space I go 

And ye meanwhile far over moor and fell 

Beat to the noiseless music of the night ! 

Has our whole earth gone nearer to the glow 

Of your soft splendors that you look so bright ? 

/ have climb'd nearer out of lonely Hell. 

Beat, happy stars, timing with things below. 

Beat with my heart more blest than heart can tell, 

Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe 

That seems to draw— but it shall not be so: 

Let all be well, be well. 

XIX. 

1. 

Hee brother is coming back to-night. 
Breaking up my dream of delight." 



My dream ? do I dream of bliss ? 

I have walk'd awake with Truth. 

O when did a morning shine 

So rich in atonement as this 

For my dark dawning youth, 

Darken'd watching a mother decline 

And that dead man at her heart and mine: 

For who was left to watch her but I ? 

Yet so did I let my freshness die. 



I trust that I did not talk 

To gentle Maud in our walk 

(For often in lonely wanderings 

I have cursed him even to lifeless things) 



MAUD. 



137 



But I trust that I did not talk, 

Not touch on her father'§ sin : 

I am sure I did but speak 

Of my mother's faded cheek 

When it slowly grew so thin, 

That I felt she was slowly dying 

Vest with lawyers and harass'd with debt : 

For how often I caught her with eyes all wet. 

Shaking her head at her sou and sighing 

A world of trouble within ! 



And Maud too, Maud was moved 

To speak of the mother she loved 

As one scarce less forlorn, 

Dying abroad and it seems apart 

From him who had ceased to share her heart. 

And ever mourning over the feud. 

The household Fury sprinkled with blood 

By which our houses are torn ; 

How strange was what she said. 

When only Maud and the brother 

Hung over her dying bed, — 

That Maud's dark father and mine 

Had bound us one to the other, 

Betrothed us over their wine 

On the day when Maud was born ; 

Seal'd her mine from her first sweet breath. 

Mine, mine by a right, from birth till death, 

Mine, mine — our fathers have sworn. 



But the true blood spilt had in it a heat 

To dissolve the precious seal on a bond. 

That, if left uucancell'd, had been so sweet : 

And none of us thought of a something beyond, 

A desire that awoke in the heart of the child. 

As it were a duty done to the tomb. 

To be friends for her sake, to be reconciled ; 

And I was cursing them and my doom, 

And letting a dangerous thought run wild 

While often abroad in the fragrant gloom 

Of foreign churches, — I see her there. 

Bright English lily, breathing a prayer 

To be friends, to be reconciled ! 

6. 

But then what a flint is he ! 

Abroad, at Florence, at JRome, 

I find whenever she touch'd on me 

This brother had laugh'd her down. 

And at last, when each came home. 

He had darken'd into a frown, 

Chid her, and forbid her to speak 

To me, her friend of the years before; 

And this was what had redden'd her cheek. 

When I bow'd to her on the moor. 



Yet Maud, altho' not blind 

To the faults of his heart and mind, 

I see she cannot but love him, 

And says he is rough but kind. 

And wishes me to approve him, 

And tells me, when she lay 

Sick once, with a fear of worse. 

That he left his wine and horses and play, 

Sat with her, read to her, night and day, 

And tended her like a nurse. 



Kind? but the death-bed desire 
Spurn'd by this heir of the liar- 
Rough but kind ? yet I know 
He has plotted against me in this, 



That he plots against me still. 
Kind to Maud ? that were not amiss. 
Well, rough but kind ; why, let it be so : 
For shall not Maud have her will 1 

9. 

For, Maud, so tender and trae. 
As long as my life endures 
I feel I shall owe you a dsbt. 
That I never can hope to pay; 
And if ever I should forget 
That I owe this debt to you 
And for your sweet sake to yours ; 

then, what then shall I say ? — 
If ever I should forget. 

May God make me more wi'etched 
Thau ever I have been yet ! 

10. 
So now I have sworn to bury 
All this dead body of hate, 

1 feel so free and so clear 

By the loss of that dead weight. 

That I should grow light-headed, I fear. 

Fantastically merry; 

But that her brother comes, like a blight 

On my fresh hope, to the Hall to-night. 

XX. 

1. 

Strange, that I felt so gay, 
Strange that I tried to-day 
To beguile her melancholy ; 
The Sultan, as we name him, — 
She did not wish to blame him — 
But he vext her and perplext her 
With his worldly talk and folly: 
Was it gentle to reprove her 
For stealing out of view 
From a little lazy lover 
Who but claims her as his due? 
Or for chilling his caresses 
By the coldness of her manners. 
Nay, the plainness of her dresses ? 
Now I know her but in two. 
Nor can pronounce upon it 
If one should ask me whether 
The habit, hat, and feather. 
Or the frock and gypsy bonnet 
Be the neater and completer; 
For nothing can be sweeter 
Than maiden Maud in either. 



But to-morrow, if we live. 
Our ponderous squire will give 
A grand political dinner 
To half the squirelings near ; 
And Maud will wear her jewels, 
And the bird Oi prey will hover. 
And the titmouse hope to win her 
With his chirrup at her ear. 

3. 
A grand political dinner 
To the men of many acres, 
A gathering of the Tory, 
A dinner and then a dance 
For the maids and marriage-makers. 
And every eye but mine will glance 
At Maud in all her glory. 

4. 

For I am not invited. 

But, with the Sultan's pardo 

I am all as well delighted. 

For I know her own rose-garden, 



138 



MAUD. 



And mean to linger In it 
Till the dancing will be over; 
And then, O then, come out to me 
For a minute, but for a minute, 
Come out to your own true lover, 
That your true lover may see 
Your glory also, and render 
All homage to his own darling. 
Queen Maud in all her splendor. 

XXI. 

EiviTLET crossing my ground, 

And bringing me down from the Hall 

This garden-rose that I found, 

Forgetful of Maud and me. 

And lost in trouble and moving round 

Here at the head of a tinkling fall, 

And trying to pass to the sea; 

O Eivulet, born at the Hall, 

My Maud has sent it by thee 

(If I read her sweet will right) 

On a blushing mission to me. 

Saying in odor and color, " Ah, be 

Among the roses to-night." 

XXII. 

1. 

Comb mto the garden, Maud, 
For the black bat, night, has flown, 

Come into the garden, Maud, 
I am here at the gate alone ; 

And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad. 
And the musk of the roses blown. 

2. 

For a breeze of morning moves, 
And the planet of Love is on high. 

Beginning to faint in the light that she loves 
On a bed of daffodil sky. 

To faint in the light of the sun that she loves. 
To faiut in his light, and to die. 

3. 

All night have the roses heard 

The flute, violin, bassoon ; 
All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd 

To the dancers dancing in tune ; 
Till a silence fell with the waking bird. 

And a hush with the setting moon. 



I said to the lily, "There is but one 
With whom she has heart to be gay. 

When will the dancers leave her alone ? 
She is weary of dance and play." 

Now half to the setting moon are gone. 
And half to the rising day ; 

Low on the sand and loud on the stone 

The last wheel echoes away. 



I said to the rose, " The brief night goes 

In babble and revel and wine. 
O young lord-lover, what sighs are those, 

For one that will never be thine? 
But mine, but mine," so I sware to the rose, 

"For ever and ever, mine." 



And the soul of the rose went into my blood. 

As the music clash'd in the hall; 
And long by the garden lake I stood, 

For I heard your rivulet fall 
From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood, 

Our wood, that is dearer than all ; 



From the meadow your walks have left so sweet 
That whenever a March-wind sighs 

He sets the jewel-print of your feet, 
In violets blue as your eyes. 

To the woody hollows in which we meet 
And the valleys of Paradise. 



The slender acacia would not shake 

One long milk-bloom on the tree ; 
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake, 

As the pimpernel dozed on the lee ; 
But the rose was awake all night for your sake. 

Knowing your promise to me ; 
The lilies and roses were all awake, 

They sigh'd for the dawn and thee. 

9. 

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls. 

Come hither, the dances are done. 
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls. 

Queen lily and rose in one; 
Shine, out, little head, sunning over with curls. 

To the flowers, and be their sun. 

10. 
There has fallen a splendid tear 

From the passion-flower at the gate. 
She is coming, my dove, my dear ; 

She is coming, my life, my fate ; 
The red rose cries, " She is near, she is near ;" 

And the white rose weeps, "She is late;" 
The larkspur listens, "1 hear, I hear;" 

And the lUy whispers, "I wait." 

11. 
She is coming, my own, my sweet ; 

Were it ever so airy a tread, 
My heart would hear her and beat. 

Were it earth in an earthy bed ; 
My dust would hear her and beat. 

Had I lain for a century dead; 
Would start and tremble under her feet. 

And blossom in purple and red. 

XXIIL 



"The fault was mine, the fault was mine"— 

Why am I sitting here so stunn'd and still. 

Plucking the harmless wild-flower on the hill ? — 

It is this guilty hand ! — 

And there rises ever a passionate cry 

From underneath in the darkening land— 

What is it, that has been done? 

O dawn of Eden bright over earth and sky. 

The fires of Hell brake out of thy rising sun. 

The fires of Hell and of Hate ; 

For she, sweet soul, had hardly spoken a word. 

When her brother ran in his rage to the gate, 

He came with the babe-faced lord ; 

Heap'd on her terms of disgrace, 

And while she wept, and I strove to be cool. 

He fiercely gave me the lie. 

Till I with as fierce an anger spoke, 

And he struck me, madman, over the face. 

Struck me before the languid fool. 

Who was gaping and grinning by: 

Struck for himself an evil stroke : 

Wrought for his house an irredeemable woe; 

For front to fi^nt in an hour we stood, 

And a million horrible bellowing echoes broke 

From the red-ribb'd hollow behind the wood. 

And thunder'd up into Heaven the Christless code, 

That must have life for a blow. 



MAUD. 



IS'J 



Ever and ever afresh they seem'd to grow. 
Was it he lay there with a fading eye? 
"The fault was mine," he whisper'd, "fly!" 
Then glided out of the joyous wood 
The ghastly Wraith of one that I know ; 
And there rang on a sudden a passionate cry, 
A cry for a brother's blood: 

It will ring in my heart and my ears, till I die, till 
I die. 

^ 2. 

Is it gone? my pulses beat — 

What was it ? a lying trick of the brain ? 

Yet I thought I saw her stand, 

A shadow there at my feet, 

High over the shadowy land. 

It is gone ; and the heavens fall in a gentle rain, 

When they should burst and drown with delugiuy 

storms 
The feeble vassals of vrine and anger and lust. 
The little hearts that know not how to forgive : 
Arise, my God, and strike, for we hold Thee just, 
Strike dead the whole weak race of venomous worms, 
That sting each other here in the dust; 
We are not worthy to live. 

XXIV. 

1. 

See what a lovely shell, 
Small and pure as a pearl, 
Lying close to my foot. 
Frail, but a work divine, 
Made so fairily well 
With delicate spire and whorl. 
How exquisitely minute, 
A miracle of design ! 



What is it? a learned man 
Could give it a clumsy name. 
Let him name it who can. 
The beauty would be the same. 

3. 
The tiny cell is forlorn, 
Void of the little living will 
That made it stir on the shore. 
Did he stand at the diamond door 
Of his house in a rainbow frill ? 
Did he push, when he was uncurl'd, 
A golden foot or a fairy horn 
Thro' his dim water-world? 



Slight, to be crush'd with a tap 
Of my finger-nail on the sand. 
Small, but a work divine. 
Frail, but of force to withstand, 
Year upon year, the shock 
Of cataract seas that snap 
The three-decker's oaken spine 
Athwart the ledges of rock. 
Here on the Breton strand ! 

5. 

Breton, not Briton ; here 

Lilie a shipwreck'd man on a coast 

Of ancient fable and fear, — 

Plagued with a flitting to and fro, 

A disease, a hard mechanic ghost 

That never came from on high 

Nor ever arose from below, 

But only moves with the moving eye. 

Flying along the land and the main,— 



Why should it look like Maud? 
Am I to be overawed 
By what I cannot but know 
Is a juggle born of the brain ? 



Back from the Breton coast, 

Sick of a nameless fear. 

Back to the dark sea-line 

Looking, thinking of all I have lost ; 

Ail old song vexes my ear ; 

But that of Lamech is mine. 

T. 
For years, a measureless ill. 
For years, forever, to part, — 
But she, she would love me still ; 
And as long, O God, as she 
Have a grain of love for me. 
So long, no doubt, no doubt. 
Shall I nurse in my dark heart. 
However weary, a spark of will 
Not to be trampled out. 



Strange, that the mind, when fraught 

With a passion so intense 

One would think that it well 

Might drown all life in the eye, — 

That it should, by being so overwrought. 

Suddenly strike on a sharper sense 

For a shell, or a flower, little things 

Which else would have been past by ! 

And now I remember, I, 

When he lay dying there, 

T noticed one of his many rings 

(For he had many, poor worm) and thought 

It is his mother's hair. 

9. 

Who knows if he be dead ? 

Whether I need have fled? 

Am I guilty of blood ? 

However this may be. 

Comfort her, comfort her, all things good, 

While I am over the sea ! 

Let me and my passionate love go by. 

But speak to her all things holy and high. 

Whatever happen to me ! 

Me and my harmful love go by ; 

But come to her waking, find her asleep. 

Powers of the height, Powers of the deep, 

And comfort her tho' I die. 

XXV. 

Courage, poor heart of stone ! 

I will not ask thee why 

Thou canst not understand 

That thou art left forever alone : 

Courage, poor stupid heart of stone. — 

Or if I ask thee why. 

Care not thou to reply: 

She is but dead, and the time is at hand 

When thou shalt more than die. 

XXVI. 
1. 

O THAT 't were possible 

After long grief and pain 

To find the arms of my true love 

Round me once again 1 



When I was wont to meet her 
In the silent woody places 



liO 



MAUD. 



By the home that gave me birth, 
We stood tranced in long embraces 
Mixt with liisses sweeter sweeter 
Than anything on earth. 

3. 

A shadow flits before me, 

Not thou, but like to thee ; 

Ah Christ, that it were possible 

For one short hour to see 

The souls we loved, that they might tell us 

What and where they be. 



It leads me forth at evening, 

It lightly winds and steals 

In a cold white robe before me, 

When all my spirit reels 

At the shouts, the leagues of lights, 

And the roaring of the wheels. 



Half the night I waste in sighs, 
Half in dreams I sorrow after 
The delight of early skies ; 
In a wakeful doze I sorrow 
For the hand, the lips, the eyes, 
For the meeting of the morrow. 
The delight of happy laughter. 
The delight of low replies. 



'T is a morning pure and sweet, 
And a dewy splendor falls 
On the little flower that clings 
To the turrets and the walls ; 
'T is a morning pure and sweet, 
And the light and shadoiv fleet ; 
She is walking in the meadow. 
And the woodland echo rings; 
In a moment we shall meet; 
She is singing in the meadow, 
And the rivulet at her feet 
Ripples on in light and shadow' 
To the ballad that she sings. 

7. 
Do I hear her sing as of old, 
My bird with the shining head, 
My own dove with the tender eye ? 
But there rings on a sudden a passionate cry, 
There is some one dying or dead. 
And a sullen thunder is roll'd; 
For a tumult shakes the city. 
And I wake, my dream is fled ; 
In the shuddering dawn, behold, 
Without knowledge, without pity, 
By the curtains of my bed 
That abiding phantom cold. 



Get thee hence, nor come again. 
Mix not memoi-y with doubt, 
Pass, thou deathlike type of pain, 
Pass and cease to move about, 
'T is the blot upon the brain 
That will show itself without. 



Then I rise, the eavedrops fall. 
And the yellow vapors choke 
The great city sounding wide; 
The day comes, a dull red ball 
Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke 
On the misty river-tide. 



10. 

Thro' the hubbub of the market 

I steal, a wasted frame, 

It crosses here, it crosses there. 

Thro' all that crowd confused and loud, 

The shadow still the same ; 

And on my heavy eyelids 

My anguish hangs like shame. 

11.^ 
Alas for her that met me. 
That heard me softly call. 
Came glimmering thro' the laurels 
At the quiet evenfall, 
In the garden by the turrets 
Of the old manorial hall. 

12. 
Would the happy spirit descend, 
From the realms of light and song, 
lu the chamber or the street. 
As she looks among the blest. 
Should I fear to greet my friend 
Or to say "forgive the wrong," 
Or to ask her, " take me sweet, 
To the regions of thy rest ?" 

13. 
But the broad light glares and beats. 
And the shadow flits and fleets 
And wUl not let me be; 
And I loathe the squares and streets. 
And the faces that one meets. 
Hearts with no love for me: 
Always I long to creep 
Into some still caveru deep. 
There to weep, and weep, and weep 
My whole soul out to thee. 

XXVII. 

1. 

Dead, long dead, 

Long dead! 

And my heart is a handful of dust. 

And the wheels go over my head, 

And my bones are shaken with pain. 

For into a shallow grave they are thrust, ^ 

Only a yard beneath the street, |B 

And the hoofs of the horses beat, beat. 

The hoofs of the horses beat. 

Beat into my scalp and my brain. 

With never an end to the stream of passing feet, 

Driving, hurrying, marrying, burying. 

Clamor and rumble, and ringing and clatter, 

And here beneath it is all as bad. 

For I thought the dead had peace, but it is not so ; 

To have no peace in the grave, is that not sad ? 

But up and down and to and fro, 

Ever about me the dead men go ; 

And then to hear a dead man chatter 

Is enough to drive one mad. 



Wretchedest age, since Time began, 

They cannot even bury a man ; 

And tho' we paid our tithes in the days that are gone. 

Not a bell was rung, not a prayer was read ; 

It is that which makes us loud in the world of the 

dead ; 
There is none that does his work, not one ; 
A touch of their oflice might have sufficed. 
But the churchmen fain would kill their church, 
As the churches have kill'd their Christ. 



MAUD. 



141 



3. 

See, there is one of ns sobbing, 

No limit to his distress ; 

And another, a lord of all things, praymg 

To his own great self, as I guess ; 

And another, a statesman there, betraying 

His party-secret, fool, to the press ; 

And yonder a vile physician, blabbing 

The case of his patient,— all for what? 

To tickle the maggot born in an empty head, 

And wheedle a world that loves him not, 

For it is but a world of the dead. 

4. 

Nothing but idiot gabble ! 

For the prophecy given of old 

And then not understood. 

Has come to pass as foretold ; 

Not let any man think for the public good, 

But babble, merely for babble. 

For I never whisper'd a private affair 

Within the hearing of cat or mouse, 

No, not to myself in the closet alone, 

But I heard it shouted at once from the top of the 

house ; 
Everything came to be known : 
Who told him we were there? 

5. 

Not that gray old wolf, for he came not back 
From the wilderness, full of wolves, where he used 

to lie ; 
He has gather'd the bones for his o'ergrowu whelp 

to crack; 
Crack them now for yourself, and howl, and die. 

6. 

Prophet, curse me the blabbing lip, 

And curse me the British vermin, the rat ; 

I know not whether he came in the Hanover ship, 

But I know that he lies and listens mute 

In an ancient mansion's crannies and holes: 

Arsenic, arsenic, sure, would do it, 

Except that now we poison our babes, poor souls ? 

It is all used up for that. 



Tell him now: she is standing here at my head; 

Not beautiful now, not even kind ; 

He may take her now; for she never speaks her 

mind, 
But is ever the one thing silent here. 
She is not of us, as I divine ; 
She comes from another stiller world of the dead, 
Stiller, not fairer than mine. 

8. 
But I know where a garden grows. 
Fairer than aught in the world beside. 
All made up of the lily and rose 
That blow hy night, when the season is good, 
To the sound of dancing music and flutes: 
It is only flbwers, they had no fruits. 
And I almost fear they are not roses, but blood ; 
For the keeper was one, so full of pride. 
He linkt a dead man there to a spectral bride; 
For he, if he had not been a Sultan of brutes, 
Would he have that hole in his side? 

9. # 

But what will the old man say? 

He laid a cruel snare in a pit 

To catch a friend of mine one stormy day ; 

Yet now I could even weep to think of it ; 

For what will the old man say 

When he comes to the second corpse in the pit ? 



10. 

Friend, to be struck by the public foe. 
Then to strike him and lay him low. 
That were a public merit, far,. 
Whatever the Quaker holds, from sin ; 
But the red life spilt for a private blow — 
I swear to you, lawful and lawless war 
Are scarcely even akin. 

11. 

me, why have they not buried me deep enough? 
Is it kind to have made me a grave so rough. 
Me, that was never a quiet sleeper? 

Maybe still I am but half-dead; 
Then I cannot be wholly dumb ; 

1 will cry to the steps above my head, 

And somebody, surely, some kiud heart will come 
To bury me, bury me 
Deeper, ever so little deeper. 

xxvm. 



My life has crept so long on a broken wing 
Thro' cells of madness, haunts of horror and fear, 
That I come to be grateful at last for a little thing: 
My mood is changed, for it fell at a time of year 
When the face of night is fair on the dewy downs, 
And the shining daffodil dies, and the Charioteer 
And starry Gemini hang like glorious crowns 
Over Orion's grave low down in the west, 
That like a silent lightning under the stars 
She seem'd to divide in a dream from a band of the 

blest. 
And spoke of a hope for the world in the. coming 

wars — 
"And in that hope, dear soul, let trouble have" rest, 
Knowing I tarry for thee," and pointed to Mars 
As he glow'd like a ruddy shield on the Lion's 

breast. 

2. 

And it was but a dream, yet it yielded a dear de- 
light 
To have look'd, tho' but in a dream, upon eyes so 

fair. 
That had been in a weary world my one thing bright ; 
And it was but a dream, yet it lighten'dmy despair 
When I thought that a war would arise in defence 

of the right. 
That an iron tyranny now should bend or cease. 
The glory of manhood stand on his ancient height, 
Nor Britain's one sole God be the millionnaire : 
No more shall commerce be all in all, and Peace 
Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note, 
And watch her harvest ripen, her herd increase, 
Nor the cannon-bullet rust on a slothful shore. 
And the cobweb woven across the cannon's throat 
Shall shake its threaded tears in the wind no more. 



And as months ran on and rumor of battle grew, 
"It is time, it is time, O passionate heart," said I 
(For I cleaved to a cause that I felt to be pure and 

true), 
"It is time, O passionate heart and morbid eye. 
That old hysterical mock-disease should die." 
And I stood on a giant deck and mix'd my breath 
With a loyal people shouting a battle cry. 
Till I saw the dreary phantom arise and fly 
Far into the North, and battle, and seas of death. 



Let it go or stay, so I wake to the higher aims 
Of a laud that has lost for a little her iSst of gold. 
And love of a peace that was full of wrongs and 
shames, 



142 



THE BKOOK. 



Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told ; 
And hail once more to the banner of battle unroll'd ! 
Tho' many a light shall darken, and many shall weep 
For those that are crush'd in the clash of jarring 

claims, 
Yet God's just wrath shall be wreak'd on a giant 

liar; 
And many a darkness into the light shall leap 
And shine in the sudden making of splendid names. 
And noble thought be freer under the sun, 
And the heart of a people beat with one desire ; 
For the peace, that I deem'd no peace, is over and 

done. 
And now by the side of the Black and the Baltic 

deep, 
And deathful-grinning mouths of the fortress, flames 
The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire. 

5. 

Let it flame or fade, and the war roll down like a 
wind, • ;^, 

We have proved we have hearts in a cause, we are 
noble still. 

And myself have awaked, as it seems, to the better 
mind ; 

It is better to flght for the good, than to rail at the 
ill; 

I have felt with my native land, I am one with my 
kind, 

I embrace the purpose of God, and the doom as- 
sign' d. 



THE BROOK ; 

AN IDYL. 

"Here, by this brook, we parted; I to the East 
And he for Italy — too late— too late: 
One whom the strong sous of the world despise ; 
For lucky rhymes to him were scrip and share, 
And mellow metres more than cent for cent ; 
Nor could he understand how money breeds, 
Thought it a dead tiling ; yet himself could make 
The thing that is not as the thing that is. 

had he lived ! In our school-books we say. 
Of those that held their heads above the crowd, 
They flourish'd then or then ; but life in him 
Could scarce be said to flourish, only touch'd 
On such a time as goes before the leaf, 

^Vhen all the wood stands in a mist of gi-een. 
And nothing perfect : yet the brook he loved, 
For which, in branding summers of Bengal, 
Or ev'n the sweet half-English Neilgherry air, 

1 panted, seems, as I re-listen to it. 
Prattling the primrose fancies of the boy. 

To me that loved him; for 'O brook,' he says, 
'O babbling brook,' says Edmund in his rhyme, 
' Whence come you ?' and the brook, why not ? re- 
plies. 

I come /rem haunts of coot and hern, 

I make a sudden sally 
And sparkle out among the fern, 

To bicker down a valley. 

By thirty hills T hurry down, 

Or slip between the ridges, 
By twenty thorps, a little town, 

And half a hundred bridges. 

Till last by Philip's farm I flow 

To join the brimming river, 
For men may come' and men may go. 

But I go on forever. 

"Poor lad, he died at Florence, quite worn out, 
Travelling ^o Naples. There is Darnley bridge, 
It has more ivy; there the river; and there 
Stands Philip's farm where brook and river meet. 



I chatter over stony ways. 

In little sharps and trebles, 
I bubble into eddying bays, 

I babble on the pebbles. 

With many a curve my banks I fret 

By many a field and fallow. 
And many a fairy foreland set 

With willow-weed and mallow. 

I chatter, chatter, as I flow 

To join the brimming river. 
For men may come and men may go, 

But I go on forever. 

"But Philip chatter'd more than brook or bird: 
Old Philip; all about the fields you caught 

His weary daylong chirping, like the dry 
High-elbow'd grigs that leap in summer grass. 

I wind about, and in and out. 

With here a blossom sailing, 
And here and there a lusty trout. 

And here and there a grayling. 

And here and there a foamy fiake 

Upon me, as I travel 
With many a silvery waterbreak 

Above the golden gravel. 

And draw them all along, and flow 

To join the brimming river, 
For men may come and men may go, 

But I go on forever. 

"O darling Katie Willows, his one child! 
A maiden of our century, yet most meek ; 
A daughter of our meadows, yet not coarse ; 
Straight, but as lissome as a hazel wand ; 
Her eyes a bashful azure, and her hair 
In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell 
Divides threefold to show the fruit within. 

" Sweet Katie, once I did her a good turn, 
Her and her far-off cousin and betrothed, 
James Willows, of one name and heart with her. 
For here I came, twenty years back, — the week 
Before I parted with poor Edmund; crost 
By that old bridge which, half in ruins then, 
Still makes a hoary eyebrow for the gleam 
Beyond it, where the waters marry — crostf^ 
Whistling a random bar of Bonny Boon, 
And push'd at Philip's garden-gate. The gate. 
Half-parted from a weak and scolding hinge. 
Stuck ; and he clamor'd from a casement, ' run ' 
To Katie somewhere in the walks below, 
' Run, Katie !' Katie never ran : she moved 
To meet me, winding under woodbine bowers, 
A little flutter'd with her eyelids down. 
Fresh apple-blossom, blushing for a boon. 

"What was it? less of sentiment than sense 
Had Katie ; not illiterate ; neither one 
Who babbling in the fount of Active te^rs. 
And nursed by mealy-mouthed philanthropies, 
Divorce the Feeling from her mate the Deed. 

"She told me. She and James had quarrell'd. 
Why? 
What cause of quarrel ? None, she said, no cause ; 
James had nc^cause : but when I prest the cause, 
I learnt that James had flickering jealousies 
Which anger'd her. Who anger'd James? I said. 
But Katie snatch'd her eyes at once from mine. 
And sketching with her slender-pointed foot 
Some figure like a wizard's pentagram 
On garden gravel, let my query pass 
Unclaim'd, in flushing silence, till I ask'd 



THE LETTERS. 



143 



If James were coming. 'Coming every day,' 

She answer'd, ' ever longing to explain, 

But evermore her father came across 

With some long-winded tale, and broke him short ; 

And James departed vext with him and her.' 

How could I help her? 'Would I— was it wrong?' 

(Claspt hands and that petitionary grace 

Of sweet seventeen subdued me ere she spoke) 

' O would I take her father for one hour, 

For one half-hour, and let him talk to me !' 

And even while she spoke, I saw where James 

Made towards us, like a wader in the surf, 

Beyond the brook, waist-deep in meadow-sweet. 

" O Katie, what I suffer'd for your sake ! 
For in I went and call'd old Philip out 
To show the farm: full willingly he rose: 
He led me thro' the short sweet-smelling lanes 
Of his wheat suburb, babbling as he went. 
He praised his land, his horses, his machines ; 
He praised his ploughs, his cows, his hogs, his dogs ; 
He praised his hens, his geese, his guinea-hens ; 
His pigeons, who in session on their roofs 
Approved him, bowing at their own deserts : 
Then from the plaintive mother's teat, he took 
Her blind and shuddering puppies, naming each, 
And naming those, his friends, for whom they were : 
Then crost the common into Darnley chase 
To show Sir Arthur's deer. In copse and fern 
Twinkled the innumerable ear and tail. 
Then, seated on a serpent-rooted beech. 
He pointed out a pasturing colt, and said : 
'That was the four-year-old I sold the squire.' 
And there he told a long, long-winded tale 
Of how the squire had seen the colt at grass. 
And how it was the thing his daughter wish'd. 
And how he sent the bailiff to the farm 
To learn the price, and what the price he ask'd, 
And how the bailiff swore that he was mad. 
But he stood firm; and so the matter hung-; 
He gave them line : and five days after that 
He met the bailiff at the Golden Fleece, 
Who then and there had offer'd something more. 
But he stood firm ; and so the matter huug ; 
He knew the man ; the colt would fetch its price ; 
He gave them line: and how by chance at last 
(It might be May or April, he forgot. 
The last of April or the first of May) 
He found the bailiff riding by the farm, 
And, talking from the point, he drew him in. 
And there he mellow'd all h'is heart with ale, 
Until they closed a bargain, hand in hand. 

"Then, while I breathed in sight of haven, he, 
Poor fellow, could he help it? recommenced, 
And ran thro' all the coltish chronicle, 
Wild Will, Black Bess, Tantivy, Tallyho, 
Reform, White Rose, Bellerophon, the Jilt, 
Arbaces and Phenomenon, and the rest, 
Till, not to die a listener, I arose, 
And with me Philip, talking still; and so 
We turn'd our foreheads from the falling sun. 
And following our own shadows thrice as long 
As when they follow'd us from Philip's door. 
Arrived, and found the sun of sweet content 
Re-risen in Katie's eyes, and all things well. 

I steal by lawns and grassy plots, 

I slide by hazel covers ; 
I move the sweet forget-me-nots 

That grow for happy lovers. 

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, 
Among my skimming swallows; 

I make the netted sunbeam dance 
Against my sandy shallows. 

I murmur under moon and stars 
In brambly wildernesses; 



I linger by my shingly bars ; 
I loiter round my cresses ; 

And out again I curve and flow 

To join the brimming river," 
For men may come and men may go, 

But I go on forever. 

Yes, men may come and go; and these are gone, 

All gone. My dearest brother, Edmund, sleeps. 

Not by the well-known stream and rustic spire. 

But unfamiliar Arno, and the dome 

Of Brunelleschi ; sleeps in peace: and he, 

Poor Philip, of all his lavish waste of words 

Remains the lean P. W. on his tomb : 

I scraped the lichen from it: Katie walks 

By the long wash of Australasian seas 

Far off, and holds her head to other stars, 

And breathes in converse seasons. All are gone." 

So Lawrence Aylmer, seated on a stile 
In the long hedge, and rolling in his mind 
Old waifs of rhyme, and bowing o'er the brook 
A tonsured head in middle age forlorn, 
Mused, and was mute. On a sudden a low breath 
Of tender air made tremble in the hedge 
The fragile bindweed-bells and briony rings ; 
And he look'd up. There stood a maiden near. 
Waiting to pass. In much amaze he stared 
On eyes a bashful azure, and on hair 
In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell 
Divides threefold to show the fruit within : 
Then, wondering, ask'd her, "Are you from the 

farm?" 
"Yes," answer'd she. "Pray stay a little: pardon 

me; 
What do they call you?" "Katie." "That were 

strange. 
What surname?" "Willows." "No!" "That is 

my name." 
" Indeed !" and here he look'd so self-perplext. 
That Katie laugh'd, and laughing blush'd, till he 
Laugh'd also, but as one before he wakes. 
Who feels a glimmering strangeness in his dream. 
Then looking at her; "Too happy, fresh and fair, 
Too fresh and fair in our sad world's best bloom. 
To be the ghost of one who bore your name 
About these meadows, twenty years ago." 

"Have you not heard?" said Katie, "we came 
back. 
We bought the farm we tenanted before. 
Am I so like her ? so they said on board. 
Sir, if you knew her in her English days, 
My mother, as it seems you did, the days 
That most she loves to talk of, come with me. 
My brother James is in the harvest-field: 
But she— you will be welcome— O, come in I" 



THE LETTERS. 

1. 
Still on the tower stood the vane, 

A black yew gloom'd the stagnant air, 
I peer'd athwart the chancel pane 

And saw the altar cold and bare. 
A clog of lead was round my feet, 

A band of pain across my brow ; 
" Cold altar. Heaven and earth shall meet 

Before you hear my marriage vow." 



I turn'd and humm'd a bitter song 
That mock'd the wholesome human heart. 

And then we met in wrath and wrong. 
We met, but only meant to part. 



144 



ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 



Full cold my greeting was and dry ; 

She faintly smiled, she hardly moved ; 
I saw with half-unconscious eye 

She wore the colors I approved. 



She took the little ivory chest, 

With half a sigh she turu'd the key. 
Then raised her head with lips comprest, 

And gave my letters back to me. 
And gave the trinkets and the rings, 

My gifts, when gifts of mine could please ; 
As looks a father on the things 

Of his dead son, I look'd on these. 

4. 

She told me all her friends had said ; 

I raged against the public liar ; 
She talk'd as if her love were dead. 

But in my words were seeds of fire. 
" No more of love ; your sex is known : 

I never will be twice deceived. 
Henceforth I trust the man alone, 

The woman cannot be believed. 



"Thro' slander, meanest spawn of Hell 

(And women's slander is the worst), 
And you, whom once I lov'd so well. 

Thro' you, my life will be accurst." 
I spoke with heart, and heat and force, 

I shook her breast with vague alarms — 
Like torrents from a mountain source 

We rush'd into each other's arms. 

6. 

We parted: sweetly gleam'd the stars, 

And sweet the vapor-braided blue, 
Low breezes fann'd the belfry bars, 

As homeward by the church I drew. 
The very graves appear'd to smile, 

So fresh they rose in shadow'd swells; 
" Dark porch," I said, " and silent aisle, 

There comes a sound of marriage bells." 



ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE 
OF WELLINGTON. 



BtniY the Great Duke 

With an empire's lamentation, 
Let us bury the Great Duke 

To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation. 
Mourning when their leaders fall. 
Warriors carry the warrior's pall. 
And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall. 



Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore ? 
Here, in streaming London's central roar. 
Let the sound of those he wrought for. 
And the feet of those he fought for, 
Echo round his bones forevermore. 



Lead out the pageant: sad and slow, 

A a fits an universal woe, 

Let the long long procession go. 

And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow, 

And let the mournful martial music blow; 

The last great Englishman is low. 



4. 
Mourn, for to us he seems the last, 
Remembering all his greatness in the Past. 
No more in soldier fashion will he greet 
With lifted hand the gazer in the street. 
O friends, our chief state-oracle is dead : 
Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood, 
The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute. 
Whole in himself, a common good. 
Mourn for the man of amplest influence. 
Yet clearest of ambitious crime, 
Our greatest yet with least pretence. 
Great in council and great in war. 
Foremost captain of his time. 
Rich in saving common-sense. 
And, as the greatest only are. 
In his simplicity sublime. 
O good gray head which all men knew, 
O voice from which their omens all men drew, 
O iron nerve to true occasion true, 
O fall'n at length that tower of strength 
Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew ! 
Such was he whom we deplore. 
The long self-sacriflce of life is o'er. 
The great World-victor's victor will be seen no more. 



All is over and done: 

Render thanks to the Giver, 

England, for thy son. 

Let the bell be toll'd. 

Render thanks to the Giver, 

And render him to the mould. 

Under the cross of gold 

That shines over city and river. 

There he shall rest forever 

Among the wise and the bold. 

Let the bell be toll'd: 

And a reverent people behold 

The towering car, the sable steeds: 

Bright let it be with his blazou'd deeds, 

Dark in its funeral fold. 

Let the bell be tolled : 

And a deeper knell in the heart be knoll'd; 

And the sound of the sorrowing anthem roll'd 

Thro' the dome of the golden cross ; 

And the volleying cannon thunder his loss; 

He knew their voices of old. 

For many a time in many a clime 

His captain's-ear has h^ard them boom 

Bellowing victory, bellowing doom ; 

When he with those deep voices wrought. 

Guarding realms and kings from shame; 

With those deep voices our dead captain taught 

The tyrant, and asserts his claim 

In that dread sound to the great name, 

Which he has worn so pure of blame. 

In praise and in dispraise the same, 

A man of well-attemper'd frame. 

O civic muse, to such a name. 

To such a name for ages long, 

To such a name. 

Preserve a broad approach of fame. 

And ever-ringing avenues of song. 

6. 

Who is he that cometh, like an honor'd guest, 
With banner and with music, with soldier and with 

priest, 
With a nation weeping, and breaking on my rest? 
Mighty seaman, this is he 
Was great by land as thou by sea. 
Thine island loves thee well, thou famous man, 
The greatest sailor since our world began. 
Now, to the roll of muffled drums. 
To thee the greatest soldier comes ; 
For this is he 



ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 



145 



Was great by laud as thou by sea; 

His foes were thiue ; he kept us free 

O give him welcome, this is he, 

Wortliy of our gorgeous rites, 

And worthy to be laid by thee ; 

For this is England's greatest son, 

He that gain'd a hundred fights. 

Nor ever lost an English gun ; 

This is he that far away 

Against the myriads of Assaye 

Clash'd with his fiery few and won; 

And underneath another sun, 

Warring on a later day, 

Round afl'righted Lisbon drew 

The treble works, the vast designs 

Of his labor'd rampart-lines. 

Where he greatly stood at bay, 

Whence he issued forth anew, 

And ever great and greater grew, 

Beating from the wasted vines 

Back to France her banded swarms, 

Back to France with countless blows, 

Till o'er the hills her eagles iiew 

Past the Pyrenean pines, 

Follow'd up in valley and glen 

With blare of bugle, clamor of men, 

Koll of cannon and clash of arms. 

And England pouring on her foes. 

Such a war had such a close. 

Again their ravening eagle rose 

In anger, wheel'd on Europe-shadowing wings, 

And barking for the thrones of kings ; 

Till one that sought but Duty's iron crown 

On thnt loud sabbath shook the spoiler down ; 

A day of onh.ets of despair ! 

Dash'd on every rocky square 

Their surging charges foam'd themselves away ; 

Last, the Prussian trumpet blew ; 

Thro' the long-tormented air * 

Heaven flash'd a sudden jubilant ray. 

And down we swept and charged and overthrew. 

So great a soldier taught us there. 

What long-enduring hearts could do 

In that world's-earthqnake, Waterloo ! 

Mighty seaman, tender and true, 

And pure as he from taint of craven guile, 

O saviour of the silver-coasted isle, 

O shaker of the Baltic and the Nile, 

If aught of things that here befall 

Touch a spirit among things divine, 

If love of country move thee there at all, 

Be glad, because his bones are laid by thine ! 

And thro' the centuries let a people's voice 

In full acclaim, 

A people's voice, 

The proof and echo of all human fame, 

A people's voice, when they rejoice 

At civic revel and pomp and game. 

Attest their great commander's claim 

With honor, honor, honor to him, 

Eternal honor to his name. 



A people's voice! we are a people yet. 
Tho' all men else their nobler dreams forget 
Confused by brainless mobs and lawless Power.s ; 
Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set 
His Saxon in blown seas and storming showers. 
We have a voice, with which to pay the debt 
Of boundless love and reverence and regret 
To those great men who fought, and kept it ours. 
And keep it ours, O God, from brute control ; 
O Statesmen, guard us, guard the eye, the soul 
Of Europe, keep our noble England whole. 
And save the one true seed of freedom sown 
Betwixt a people and their ancient thi'one. 
That sober freedom out of which there springs 
Our loyal passion for our temperate kings ; 
10 



For, saving that, ye help to save mankind 

Till public wrong be crumbled into dust. 

And drill the raw world for the march of mind. 

Till crowds at length be sane and crovras be just. 

But wink no more in slothful overtrust. 

Remember him who led your hosts; 

He bade you guard the sacred coasts. 

Your cannons moulder on the seaward wall; 

His voice is silent in your council-hall 

Forever ; and whatever tempests lower 

Forever silent; even if they broke 

In thunder, silent : yet remember all 

He spoke among you, and the Man who spoke ; 

Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, 

Nor palter'd with Eternal God for power; 

Who let the turbid streams of rumor flow 

Thro' either babbling world of high and low : 

Whose life was work, whose language rife 

With rugged maxims he-\vn from life ; 

Who never spoke against a foe : 

Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke 

All great self-seekers trampling on the right : 

Truth-teller was our Eng.land'8 Alfred named; 

Truth-lover was our English Duke ; 

Whatever record leap to light 

He never shall be- shamed. 



Lo, the leader in these glorious wars 

Now to glorious burial slowly borne, 

Follow'd by the brave of other lands, 

He, on whom from both her open hands 

Lavish Honor shower'd all her stars. 

And affluent Fortune emptied all her horn. 

Yea, let all good things await 

Him who cares not to be great. 

But as he saves or serves the state. 

Not once or twice in our rough island-story, 

The path of duty was the way to glory : 

He that walks it, only thirsting 

For the right, and learns to deaden 

Love of self, before his journey closes. 

He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting 

Into glossy purples, which outredden 

All voluptuous garden-roses. 

Not once or twice in our fair island-story, 

The path of duty was the way to glory : 

He, that ever following her commands, 

On with toil of heart and knees and hands, 

Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won 

His path upward, and prevail'd, 

Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled 

Are close upon the shining table-lauds 

To which our God Himself is moon and sun. 

Such was he: his work is done. 

But while the races of mankind endure. 

Let his great example stand 

Colossal, seen of every land, 

And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure ; 

Till in all lands and thro' all human story 

The path of duty be the way to glory : 

And let the land whose hearths he saved from shame 

For many and many an age proclaim 

At civic revel and pomp and game, 

And when the long-illumined cities flame. 

Their ever-loyal iron leader's fame, 

With honor, honor, honor, honor to him. 

Eternal honor to his name. 

9. 

Peace, his triumph will be sung 

By some )'et unraoulded tongue 

Far on in summers that we shall not see: 

Peace, it is a day of pain 

For one about whose patriarchal knee 

Late the little children clung: 

O peace, it is a day of pain 



146 



THE DAISY. 



For one upon whose hand and heart and brain 
Once the weight and late of Europe hung. 
Ours the pain, be his the gain 1 
More than is of man's degree 
Must be with us, watching here 
At this, our great solemnity. 
Whom we see not we revere. 
We revere, and we refrain 
From talk of battles loud and vain, 
And brawling memories all too free 
For such a wise humility 
As befits a solemn fane: 
We revere, and while we hear 
The tides of Music's golden sea 
Setting toward eternity. 
Uplifted high in heart and hope are we, 
Until we doubt not that for one so true 
There must be other nobler work to do 
Thau when he fought at Waterloo, 
Aud Victor he must ever be. 
For tho' the Giant Ages heave the hill 
And break the shore, and evermore 
Make and break, and work their will ; 
Tho' world on world in myriad myriads roll 
Kound as, each with different powers, 
And other forms of life than ours. 
What know we greater than the soul? 
On God and Godlike men we build our trust. 
Hush, the Dead March wails in the people's ears : 
The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears: 
The black earth yawns; the mortal disappears; 
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust ; 
He is gone who seem'd so great.— 
Gone ; biit nothing can bereave him 
Of the force he made his own 
Being here, and we believe him 
Something far advanced in state, 
And that he wears a truer crown 
Than any wreath that man can weave him. 
But speak no more of his renown. 
Lay your earthly ftmcies down, 
Aud in the vast cathedral leave him. 
God accept him, Christ receive him. 
1852. 



THE DAISY. 

WRITTEN AT EDINBURGH. 

O Love, what hours were thine and mine. 
In lands of palm and southern pine ; 

In lands of palm, of orange-blossom. 
Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine. 

What Roman strength Turbia show'd 
In ruin, by the mountain road ; 

How like a gem, beneath, the city 
Of little Monaco, basking, glow'd. 

How richly down the rocky dell 
The torrent vineyard streaming fell 

To meet the sun and sunny waters, 
That only heaved with a summer swell. 

What slender campanili grew 

By bays, the peacock's neck in hue; 

Where, here and there, on sandy beaches 
A milky-bell'd amaryllis blew. 

How young Columbus seem'd to rove. 
Yet present in his natal grove. 

Now watching high on mountain cornice. 
And steering, now, from a purple cove. 

Now pacing mute by ocean's rim ; 
Till, in a narrow street and dim, 

I stay'd the wheels at Oogoletto, 
Aud drank, and loyally drank to him. 



Nor knew we well what pleased us most 
Not the dipt palm of which they boast; 

But distant color, happy hamlet, 
A moulder'd citadel on the coast. 

Or tower, or high hill-convent, seen 
A light amid its olives green ; 

Or olive-hoary cape in ocean ; 
Or rosy blossom in hot ravine. 

Where oleanders flush'd the bed 
Of silent torrents, gravel-spread ; 

And, crossing, oft we saw the glisten 
Of ice, far up on a mountain head. 

We loved that hall, tho' white and cold, 
Those niched shapes of noble mould, 

A princely people's awful princes. 
The grave, severe Genovese of old. 

At Florence too what golden hours, 
In those long galleries, were ours ; 

What drives about the fresh Casciud, 
Or walks in Boboli's ducal bowers. 

In bright vignettes, and each complete, 
Of tower or duomo, sunny-sweet. 

Or palace, how the city glitter'd, 
Thro' cypress avenues, at our feet. 

But when we crost the Lombard plain 
Remember what a plague of rain ; 

Of rain at Reggio, rain at Parma; 
At Lodi, rain, Piacenza, rain. 

And stern and sad (so rare the smiles 
Of sunlight) look'd the Lombard piles ; 

Porch-pillars on the lion resting, 
And sombre, old, colonnaded aisles. 

Milan, O the chanting quires, 
The giant windows' blazon'd flres. 

The height, the space, the gloom, the glory ! 
A mount of marble, a hundred spires ! 

1 climb'd the roofs at break of day ; 
Sun-smitten Alps before me lay. 

I "tood among the silent statues, 
And statued pinnacles, mute as they. 

How faintly-flush'd, how phantom-fair. 
Was Jlonte Rosa, hanging there 

A thousand shadowy-pencill'd valleys 
Aud snowy dells in a golden air. 

Remember how we came at last 
To Como ; shower and storm and blast 
Had olown the lake beyond his limit, 
Aud all was flooded ; and how we past 

From Como, when the light was gray, 
Aud in my head, for half the day. 

The rich Virgilian rustic measure 
Of Lari Maxume, all the way, 

Like ballad-burthen music, kept, 
As on the Lariauo crept 

To that fair port below the castle 
Of Queen Theodolind, where we slept ; 

Or hardly slept, but watch'd awake 

A cypress in the moonlight shake. 
The moonlight touchiug o'er a terrace 
One tall Agav6 above the lake. 

What more? we took our last adieu. 
And up the snowy Splugen drew. 

But ere we reach'd the highest summit 
I pluck'd a daisy, I gave it you. 



TO THE REV. F. D. MAURICE.— THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 147 



It told of England then to me, 
And now it tells of Italy. 

O love, we two shall go no longer 
To lauds of summer across the sea ; 

So dear a life your arms enfold 
Whose crying is a cry for gold : 

Yet here to-night in this dark city, 
Wheu ill and weary, alone and cold, 

I found, tho' crush'd to hard and dry. 
This nurseling of another sky 

Still iu the little book you lent me, 
And where you tenderly laid it by: 

And I forgot the clouded Forth, 

The gloom that saddens Heaven and Earth, 

The bitter east, the misty summer 
And gray metropolis of the North. 

Perchance, to lull the throbs of pain, 
Perchance, to charm a vacant brain. 

Perchance, to dream you still beside me. 
My fancy fled to the South again. 



TO THE REV. F. D. MAURICE. 

Come, when no graver cares employ, 
God-father, come and see your boy : 

Your presence will be sun iu winter, 
Making the little one leap for joy. 

For, being of that honest few, 

Who give the Fiend himself his due, 

Should eighty thousand college councils 
Thunder "Anathema," friend, at you: 

Should all our churchmen foam in spite 
At you, so careful of the right, 

Yet one lay-hearth would give you welcome 
(Take it and come) to the Isle of Wight ; 

Where, far from noise and smoke of town, 
I watch the twilight falling brown 

All round a careless-order'd garden 
Close to the ridge of a noble dowu. 

Y'ou'll have no scandal while you dine, 
But honest talk and wholesome wiue, 

Aud only hear the magpie gossip 
Garrulous under a roof of piue : " 

For groves of pine on either hand, 
To break the blast of winter, staud ; 
Aud further on, the hoary Channel 
Tumbles a breaker ou chalk and saud; 

Where, if below the milky steep 
Some ship of battle slowly creep, 

Aud on thro' zones of light and shadow 
Glimmer away to the lonely deep. 

We might discuss the Northern sin 
Which made a selfish war begin ; 

Dispute the claims, arrange the chances ; 
Emperor, Ottoman, which shall win : 

Or whether war's avenging rod 
Shall lash all Europe into blood; 

Till you should turn to dearer matters, 
Dear to the man that is dear to God; 

How best to help the slender store, 
How mend the dwellings, of the poor ; 

How gain iu life, as life advances, 
Valor and charity more aud more. 



Come, Maurice, come: the lawn as yet 
Is hoar with rime, or spongy-wet ; 

But when the wreath of March has blossom'd. 
Crocus, anemone, violet. 

Or later, pay one visit here. 

For those are few we hold as dear; 

Nor pay but one, but come for many, 
Many aud many a happy year. 
January, 1854. 



WILL. 

1. 

O WELL for him whose will is strong ! 

He suffers, but he will not suffer long ; 

He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong: 

For him nor moves the loud world's random mock, 

Nor all Calamity's hugest waves confound. 

Who seems a promontory of rock, 

That, compass'd round with turbulent sound. 

In middle ocean meets the surging shock. 

Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crown' d. 



But ill for him who|(betteriug not with time. 

Corrupts the strength of heaven-descended Will, 

Aud ever weaker grows thro' acted crime. 

Or seeming-genial veuial fault. 

Recurring and suggesting still ! 

He seems as one whose footsteps 

Toiling iu immeasurable saud. 

And o'er a weary, sultry land. 

Far beneath a blazing vault. 

Sown iu a wrinkle of the monstrous hill. 

The city sparkles like a grain of salt. 



THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 

1. 

Half a league, half a league. 
Half a league onward. 
All in the valley of Death 

Rode the six hundred. 
"Forward, the Light Brigade! 
"Charge for the guns!" he said: 
Into the valley of Death 

Kode the six hundred. 



"Forward, the Light Brigade 1" 
Was there a man dismay'd ? 
Not tho' the soldier knew 

Some one had blunder'd : 
' Theirs not to make reply. 
Theirs not to reason why, 
Theirs but to do and die. 
Into the valley of Death 

Rode the six hundred. 



Cannon to right of them, 
Cannon to left of them. 
Cannon in front of theni 

Volley'd and thuuder'd , 
Storm'd at with shot and shell. 
Boldly they rode and well. 
Into the jaws of Death, 
Into the mouth of Hell 

Rode the six hundred. 



148 



DEDICATION. —ENID. 



4. 
Flash'd all their sabres bare, 
riash'd as they tiiru'd in air, 
Sabring the gunners there. 
Charging an army, while 

All the world wonder'd : 
Plunged in the battery-smoke. 
Right thro' the line they broke ; 
Cossack and Russian 
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke 

Shatter'd and sunder'd. 
Then they rode back, but not 

Not the six hundred. 

6. 
Cannon to right of them. 
Cannon to left of them, 



Cannon behind them 

Volley'd and thunder'd ; 
Storm'd at with shot and shell, 
While horse and hero fell, 
They that had fought so well 
Came thro' the jaws of Death 
Back from the mouth of Hell, 
All that was left of them. 
Left of six hundred. 



When can their glory fade ? 
O the wild charge they made! 

All the world wonder'd. 
Honor the charge they made ! 
Honor the Light Brigade, 

Noble six hundred ! 



IDYLS OF THE KING 



"Flos Regain Artburus." 

Joseph of Exeteb. 



DEDICATION. 

Thebe to His Memory — since he held them dear. 
Perchance as finding there unconsciously 
Some image of himself— I dedicate, 
I dedicate, I consecrate with tears — 
These Idyls. 

And indeed He seems to me 
Scarce other than my own ideal knight, 
"VVTio reverenced his conscience as his king; 
Whose glory was, redressing human wrong ; 
Who spake no slander, no, nor listen'd to it ; 
Who loved one only and who clave to her — " 
Her — over all whose realms to their last isle. 
Commingled with the gloom of imminent war. 
The shadow of His loss moved like eclipse. 
Darkening the world. We have lost him : he is gone : 
We know him now : all narrow jealousies 
Are silent: and we see him as he moved. 
How modest, kindly, all accomplish'd, wise, 
With what sublime repression of himself, 
And in what limits, and how tenderly ; 
Not swaying to this faction or to that ; 
Not making his high place the lawless perch 
Of wing'd ambitions, nor a vantage-ground 
For pleasure : but thro' all this tract of years 
Wearing the white flower of a blameless life. 
Before a thousand peering littlenesses. 
In that fierce light which beats upon a throne, 
And blackens every blot; for where is he. 
Who dares foreshadow for an only son 
A lovelier life, a more unstain'd, than his? 
Or how should England dreaming of his sops 
Hope more for these than some inheritance 
Of such a life, a heart, a mind as thine. 
Thou noble Father of her Kings to be, 
Laborious for her people and her poor — 
Voice in the rich dawn of an ampler day — 
Far-sighted summoner of War and Waste 
To fruitful strifes and rivalries of peace- 
Sweet nature gilded by the gracious gleam 
Of letters, dear to Science, dear to Art, 
Dear to thy land and ours, a Prince indeed. 
Beyond all titles, and a household name. 
Hereafter, thro' all times, Albert the Good. 

Break not, O woman's-heart, but still endure ; 
Break not, for thou art Royal, but endure, 
Remembering all the beauty of that star 



Which shone so close beside Thee, that ye made 
One light together, but has past and left 
The Crown of lonely splendor. 

May all love, 
His love, unseen but felt, o'ershadow Thee, 
The love of all Thy sons encompass Thee, 
The love of all Thy daughters cherish Thee, 
The love of all Thy people comfort Thee, 
Till God's love set Thee at his side again 



ENID. 

The brave Geraint, a knight of Arthur's court, 
A tributary prince of Devon, one 
Of that great order of the Table Round, 
Had wedded Enid, Yniol's only child, 
And loved her, as he loved the light of Heaven. 
And as the light of Heaven varies, now 
At sunrise, now at sunset, now by night 
With moon and trembling stars, so loved Geraint 
To make her beauty vary day by day, 
In crimsons and in purples and in gems. 
And Enid, but to please her husband's eye. 
Who first had found and loved her in a state 
Of broken fortunes, daily fronted him 
In some fresh splendor ; and the Queen herself, 
Grateful to Prince Geraint for service done. 
Loved her, and often with her own white hands 
Array'd and deck'd her, as the loveliest, 
Next after her own self, in all the court. 
And Enid loved the Queen, and with true heart 
Adored her, as the stateliest and the best 
And loveliest of all women upon earth. 
And seeing them so tender and so close. 
Long in their common love rejoiced Geraint. 
But when a rumor rose about the Queen, 
Touching her guilty love for Lancelot, 
Though yet there lived no proof, nor yet was heard 
The world's loud whisper breaking into storm, 
Not less Geraint believed it; and there fell 
A horror on him, lest his gentle wife, 
Thro' that great tenderness to Guinevere, 
Had suffered or should suffer any taint 
In nature: wherefore going to the king. 
He made this pretext, that his princedom lay 
Close on the borders of a territory, 
I Wherein were bandit earls, and caitiff knights, 



ENID. 



149 



Assassins, and all flyers from the hand 
Of Justice, and whatever loathes a law : 
And therefore, till the king himself should please 
To cleanse this common sewer of all his realm, 
He craved a ftiir permission to depart, 
And there defend his marches ; and the king 
Mused for a little on his plea, but, last. 
Allowing it, the prince and Enid rode, 
And fifty knights rode with them, to the shores 
Of Severn, and they past to their own land ; 
Where, thinking, that if ever yet was wife 
True to her lord, mine shall be so to me, 
lie compassed her with sweet observances 
And worship, never leaving her, and grew 
Forgetful of his promise to the king, 
For^tful of the falcon and the hunt, 
Forgetful of the tilt and tournament, 
Forgetful of his glory and his name, 
Forgetful of his princedom and its cares. 
And this forgetfulness was hateful to her. 
And by and by the people, when they met 
fn twos and threes, or fuller companies, 
Began to scoff and jeer and babble of him 
As of a prince whose manhood was all gone, 
And molten down in mere uxoriousuess. 
And this she gather'd from the people's eyes: 
This too the women who attired her head, 
To please her, dwelling on his boundless love. 
Told Enid, and they saddened her the more : 
And day by day she thought to tell Geraiut, 
But could not out of bashful delicacy; 
While he that watch'd her sadden, was the more 
Suspicious that her nature had a taint. 

At last, it chanced that on a summer morn 
(They sleeping each by other) the new sun 
Beat through the bliudless casement of the room, 
And heated the strong warrior in his dreams; 
Who, moving, cast the coverlet aside. 
And bared the knotted column of his throat. 
The massive square of his heroic breast, 
And arms on which the standing muscle sloped, 
As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone. 
Running too vehemently to break npon it. 
And Enid woke and sat beside the conch. 
Admiring him, and thought within herself. 
Was ever man so grandly made as he ? 
Then, like a shadow, past the people's talk 
And accusation of uxorionsness 
Across her mind, and bowing over him. 
Low to her own heart piteously, she said: 

"O noble breast and all-puissant arms, 
An\ I the cause, I the poor cause that men 
Eeproach you, saying all your force is gone ? 
I am the cause because I dare not speak 
And tell him what I think and what they say. 
And yet I hate that he should linger here ; 
I cannot love my lord and not his name. 
Far liever had I gird his harness on him. 
And ride with him to battle and stand by. 
And watch his mightful hand striking great blows 
At caitiffs and at wrongers of the world. 
Far better were I laid in the dark earth. 
Not hearing any more his noble voice, 
Not to be folded any more in these dear arms, 
And darken'd from the high light in his eyes, 
Thau that my lord through me should suffer shame. 
Am I so bold, and could 1 so stand by. 
And see my dear lord wounded in the strife. 
Or may be pierced to death before mine eyes. 
And yet not dare to tell him what I think. 
And how men slur him, saying all his force 
Is melted into mere effeminacy? 
O me, I fear that I am ixo true wife." 

Half inwardly, half audibly she spoke. 
And the strong passion in her made her weep 



True tears upon his broad and naked breast. 
And these awoke him, and by great mischance 
He heard but fragments of her later words. 
And that she fear'd she was not a true wife. 
And then he thought, " In spite of all my care, 
For all my pains, poor man, for all my pains, 
She is not faithful to me, and I see her 
Weeping for some gay knight in Arthur's hall." 
Then tho' he loved and reverenced her too much 
To dream she could be guilty of foul act. 
Right thro' his manful breast darted the pang 
That makes a man in the sweet face of her 
Whom he loves most, lonely and miserable. 
At this he hurl'd his huge limbs out of bed. 
And shook his drowsy squire awake and cried, 
"My charger and her palfrey," then to her, 
"I will ride forth into the wilderness; 
For tho' it seems my spurs are yet to win, 
I have not fall'u so low as some would wish. 
And you, put on your worst and meanest dress 
And ride with me." And Enid ask'd amazed, 
"If Enid errs, let Enid learn her fault." 
But he, "I charge you, ask not, but obey." 
Then she bethought her of a faded silk, 
A faded mantle and a faded veil. 
And moving toward a cedarn cabinet. 
Wherein she kept them folded reverently 
With sprigs of summer laid between the folds. 
She took them, and array'd herself therein. 
Remembering when first he came on her 
Drest in that dress, and how he loved her in it. 
And all her foolish fears about the dress. 
And all his journey to her, as himself 
Had told her, and their coming to the court. 

For Arthur on the Whitsuntide before 
Held court at old Caerleon npon Usk. 
There on a day, he sitting high in iiall. 
Before him came a forester of Dean, 
■\^'et from the woods, with notice of a hart 
Taller than all his fellows, milky-white, 
First seen that day: these things he told the king. 
Then the good king gave order to let blow ^ 

His horns for hunting on the morrow morn. w 

And when the Queen petition'd for his leave 
To see the hunt, allow'd it easily. 
So with the morning all the court were gone. 
But Guinevere lay late into the morn, 
Lost in sweet dreams, and dreaming of her love 
For Lancelot, and forgetful of the hunt; 
But rose at last, a single maiden with her, 
Took horse, and forded Usk, and gain'd the wood ; 
There, on a little knoll beside it, stay'd 
Waiting to hear the hounds; but heard instead 
A sudden sound of hoofs, for Prince Geraint, 
Late also, wearing neither hunting-dress 
Nor weapon, save a golden-hilfed brand. 
Came quickly flashing thro' the shallow ford 
Behind them, and so gallop'd up the knoll. 
A purple scarf, at either end whereof 
There swung an apple of the purest gold, 
Sway'd round about him, as he gallop'd up 
To join them, glancing like a dragon-fly 
In summer suit and sillis of holiday. 
Low bow'd the tributary Prince, and she. 
Sweetly and statelily, and with all grace ^ 
Of womanhood and queenhood, answer'd him : 
"Late, late, Sir Prince," she said, "later than we!" 
"Yea, iwble Queen," he answer'd, "and so late 
That I but come like you to see the hunt. 
Not join it." "Therefore wait with me," she said; 
" For on this little knoll, if anywhere, 
There is good chance that we shall hear the hounds ; 
Here often they break covert at our feet." 

V 

And while they listen'd for the distant hunt. 
And chiefly for the baying of Cavall, 
King Arthur's hound of deepest month, there rode 



150 



ENID. 



Full slowly by a knight, larty, and dwarf; 
Whereof the dwarf lagg'd latest, and the knight 
Had visor up, and show'd a youthful face. 
Imperious, and of haughtiest lineaments. 
And Guinevere, not mindful of his face 
In the king's hall, desired his name, and sent 
Her maiden to demand it of the dwarf; 
Who being vicious, old, and irritable. 
And doubling all his master's vice of pride. 
Made answer sharply that she should not know. 
"Then will I ask it of himself," she said. 
"Nay, by my faith, thou shalt not," cried the dwarf; 
" Thou art not worthy ev'n to speak of him ;" 
And when she put her horse toward the knight, 
Struck at her with his whip, and she return'd 
Indignant to the Queen ; at which Geraint 
Exclaiming, " Surely I will learn the name," 
Made sharply to the dwarf, and ask'd it of him, 
Who auswer'd as before; and when the Prince 
Had put his horse in motion toward the knight. 
Struck at him with his whip, and cut his cheek. 
The Prince's blood spirted upon the scarf. 
Dyeing it; and his quick, instinctive hand 
Caught at the hilt, as to abolish him : 
But he, from his exceeding manfuluess 
And pure nobility of temperament, 
Wroth to be wroth at such a worm, refrain'd 
From ev'n a word, and so returning, said : 

"I will avenge this insult, noble Queen, 
Done in your maiden's person to yourself: 
And I will track this vermin to their earths : 
For tho' I ride unarm'd, I do not doubt 
To find, at some place I shall come at, arms 
On loan, or else for pledge ; and, being found, 
Then will I fight him, and will break his pride. 
And on the third day will again be here. 
So that I be not fall'n in fight. Farewell." 

"Farewell, fair Prince," answer'd the stately Queen. 
" Be prosperous in this jonrney, as in all ; 
And may you light on all things that you love, 
^ And live to wed with her whom first you love : 
^ But ere you wed with any, bring your bride, 
And I, were she the daughter of a king. 
Yea, tho' she were a beggar from the hedge. 
Will clothe her for her bridals like the sun." 

And Prince Geraint, now thinking that he heard 
The noble hart at bay, now the far hgrn, 
A little vext at losing of the hunt, 
A little at the vile occasion, rode, 
By ups and downs, thro' many a grassy glade 
And valley, with flxt eye, following the three. ■ 
At last they issued from the world of wood, 
And climb'd upon a fair and even ridge, 
And show'd themselves against the sky, and sank. 
And thither came Geraint, and underneath 
Beheld the long street of a little town 
In a long valley, on one side of which. 
White from the mason's hand, a fortress rose : 
And on one side a castle in decay. 
Beyond a bridge that spann'd a dry ravine: 
And out of town and valley came a noise 
As of a broad brook o'er a shingly bed 
BrawlinAor like a clamor of the rooks 
At distance, ere they settle for the night. 

And onward to the fortress rode the three, 
And enter'd, and were lost behind the walls.- 
"So," thought Geraint, "I have track'd him to his 

earth." 
And down the long street, riding wearily, 
Found every hostel full, and everywhere 
Was hammer laid to hoof, and the hot hi.sji 
And bustling whistle of the youth who scour'd 
His master's armor; and of such a one 
He ask'd, "What means the tumult in the town?" 



Who told him, scouring still, "The sparrow-hawk .'' 
Then riding close behind an ancient churl, 
Who, smitten by the dusty sloping beam. 
Went sweating underneath a sack of corn, 
Ask'd yet ouce more what meant the hubbub here? 
Who answer'd gruBly, " Ugh ! the sparrow-hawk," 
Then, riding further past an armorer's. 
Who, with back turn'd, and bow'd above his work, 
Sat riveting a helmet on his knee, 
He put the selfsame query, but the man 
Not turning round, nor looking at him, said : 
"Friend, he that labors for the sparrow-hawk 
Has little time for idle questioners." 
Whereat Geraint flash'd into sudden spleen: 
"A thousand pips eat up your sparrow-hawk! 
Tits, wrens, and all wing'd nothings peck him dead ! 
Ye think the rustic cackle of your bourg 
The murmur of the world ! What is it to me ? 
O wretched set of sparrows, one and all. 
Who pipe of nothing but of sparrow-hawks ! 
Speak, if you be not like the rest, hawk-mad. 
Where can I get me harborage for the night? 
And arms, arms, arms to fight my enemy ? Speak !" 
At this the armorer turning all amazed 
And seeing one so gay in purple silks. 
Came forward with the helmet j'et in hand 
And answer'd, "Pardon me, O stranger knight; 
We hold a tourney here to-morrow morn. 
And there is scantly time for half the work. 
Arms ? truth 1 I know not : all are wanted here, 
Harborage truth, good truth, I know not, save, 
It may be, at Earl Yniol's, o'er the bridge 
Yonder." He spoke and fell to work again. 

Then rode Geraint, a little spleenful yet. 
Across the bridge that spann'd the dry ravine. 
There musing sat the hoary-headed Earl, 
(His dress a suit of fray'd magnificence. 
Once fit for feasts of ceremony) and said : 
"Whither, fair son?" to whom Geraint replied, 
" O friend, I seek a harborage for the night." 
Then Yniol, " Enter therefore and partake 
The slender entertainment of a house 
Once rich, now poor, but ever open-door'd." 
"Thanks, venerable friend," replied Geraint; 
"So that you do not serve me sparrow-hawks 
For supper, I will enter, I will eat 
With all the passion of a twelve hours' fast." 
Then sigh'd and smiled the hoar}'-headed Earl, 
And answer'd, "Graver cause than yours is mine 
To curse this hedgerow thief, the sparrow-hawk: 
But in, go in ; for, save yourself desire it. 
We will not touch upon him ev'n in jest." 

Then rode Geraint into the castle court. 
His charger trampling many a prickly star 
Of sprouted thistle on the broken stones. 
He look'd and saw that all was ruinous. 
Here stood a shatter'd archway plumed with fern ; 
And here had fall'n a great part of a tower. 
Whole, like a crag that tumbles from the cliff, 
And like a crag was gay with wilding flowers: 
And high above a piece of turret stair. 
Worn by the feet that now were silent, wound 
Bare to the sun, and monstrous ivy-stems 
Claspt the gray walls with hairy-fibred arms, 
And suck'd the joining of the stones, and look'd 
A knot, beneath, of snakes, aloft, a grove. 

And while he waited in the castle court. 
The voice of Enid, Yniol's daughter, rang 
Clear thro' the open casement of the Hall, 
Singing: and as the sweet voice of a bird, 
IHeard by the lander in a lonely isle, 
gloves him to think what kind of bird it is 
'TThat sings so delicately clear, and make 
Conjecture of the plumage and the form ; 
Bo the sweet voice of Enid moved Geraint ; 



ENID. 



151 



And made him like a man abroad at morn 

When first the liquid note beloved of men 

Comes flj'ing over many a windy wave 

To Britain, <lnd in April suddenly 

Breaks from a coppice gemm'd with green and red, 

And he suspends his converse with a friend, 

Or it may be the labor of his hands, 

To think or say, " there is the nightingale ;" 

So fared it with Geraiut, whV) thought and said, 

" Here, by God's grace, is the one voice for me." 

It chanced the song that Enid sang was one 
Of Fortune and her wheel, and Enid sang : 

"Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the 
proud ; 
Turn thy wild wheel thro' sunshine, storm, and cloud : 
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate. 

" Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or 
frown ; 
With that wild wheel we go not up or down ; 
Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great. 

"Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands; 
Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands , 
For man is man and master of his fate. 

" Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd ; 
Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud ; 
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate." 

" Hark, by the bird's song you may learn the nest," 
Said Yniol : "Enter quickly." Entering then, 
Kight o'er a mount of newly-fallen stones. 
The dusty-rafter'd many-cobweb'd Hall, 
He found an ancient dame in dim brocade; 
And near her, like a blossom vermeil-white, 
That lightly breaks a faded flower-sheath. 
Moved the fair Enid, all in faded silk. 
Her daughter. In a moment thought Geraint, 
"Here by God's rood is the one maid for me." 
But none spake word except the hoary Earl : 
"Enid, the good knight's horse stands in the court. 
Take him to stall, and give him corn, and then 
Go to the town and buy us flesh and wine : 
And we will make us merry as we may. 
Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great." 

He spake: the Prince, as Enid past him, fain 
To follow, strode a stride, but Yniol caught 
His purple scarf, and held, and said "Forbear! 
Rest ! the good house, tho' ruin'd, O my Son, 
Endures not that her guest should serve himself." 
And reverencing the custom of the house 
Geraint, from utter courtesy, forbore. 

So Enid took his charger to the stall ; 
And after went her way across the bridge. 
And reach'd the town, and while the Prince and Earl 
Yet spoke together, came again with one, 
A youth, that following with a costrel bore 
The means of goodly welcome, flesh and wine. 
And Enid brought sweet cakes to make them cheer. 
And in her veil enfolded, manchet bread. 
And then, because their hall must also serve 
For kitchen, boil'd the flesh, and spread the board, 
And stood behind, and waited on the three. 
And seeing her so sweet and serviceable, 
Geraint had longing in him evermore 
To stoop and kiss the tender little thumb. 
That crost the trencher as she laid it down: 
But after all had euten, then Geraint, 
For now the wine made summer in his veins, 
Let his eye rove in following, or rest 
On Enid at her lowly handmaid-work. 
Now here, now there, about the dusky hall : 
Then suddenly addrest the hoary Earl. 



"Fair Host and Earl, I pray your courtesy; 
This sparrow-hawk, what is he, tell me of him. 
His name? but no, good faith, I will not have it: 
For if he be the knight whom late I saw 
Ride into that new fortress ))y your town. 
White from the mason's hand, then have I sworn 
Prom his own lips to have it — I am Geraiut 
Of Devon— for this morning when the Queen 
Sent her own maiden to demand the name, 
His dwarf, a vicious under-shapeu thing, 
Struck at her with his whip, and she return'd 
Indignant to the Queen : and then I swore 
That I would track this caitiff to his hold. 
And fight and break his pride, and have it of him. 
And all unarm'd I rode, and thought to find 
Arms in your town, where all the men are mad ; 
They take the rustic murmur of their bourg 
For the great wave that echoes round the world; 
They would not hear me speak : but if you know 
Where I can light on arms, or if yourself 
Should have them, tell me, seeing I have sworn 
That I will break his pride and learn his name, 
Avenging this great insult done the Queen." 

Then cried Yniol: "Art thou he indeed, 
Geraint, a name far-sounded among men 
For noble deeds? and truly I, when first 
I saw you moving by me on the bridge. 
Felt you were somewhat, yea and by your state 
And presence might have guess'j you one of those 
That eat in Arthur's hall at Camelot. 
Nor speak I now from foolish flattery ; 
For this dear child hath often heard me praise 
Your feats of arms, and often when 1 paused 
Hath ask'd again, and ever loved to hear ; 
So grateful is the noise of noble deeds 
To noble hearts who see but acts of wrong: 

never yet had woman such a pair 

Of suitors as this maiden ; first Limours, 
A creature wholly given to brawls and wine, 
Drunk even when he woo'd ; and be he dead 

1 know not, but he passed to the wild land. 
The second was your foe, the sparrow-hawk, 
My curse, my nephew,— I will not let his name 
Slip from ray lips if I can help it,— he, 
When I that knew him fierce and turbulent 
Refused her to him, then his pride awoke ; 
And since the proud man often is the mean, r< 
He sowed a slander in the common ear, 
Afllrming that his father left him gold. 

And in my charge, which was not render'd to him ; 

Bribed with large promises the men who served 

About my person, the more easily 

Because my means were somewhat broken into 

Thro' open doors and hospitality; 

Raised my own town against me in the night 

Before my Enid's birthday, sack'd my house 

From mine own earldom foully ousted me ; 

Built that new fort to overawe my friends, 

For truly there are those who love me yet; 

And keeps me in this ruinous castle here, 

Where doubtless he would put me soon to death, 

But that his pride too ranch despises me : 

And I myself sometimes despise myself: 

For I have lefc men be, and have their way ; 

And much too gentle, have not used my power: 

Nor know I whether I be very base 

Or very manful, whether very wise 

Or very foolish ; only this I know. 

That whatsoever evil happen to me, 

I seem to suffer nothing heart or limb, 

But can endure it all most patiently." 

"Well said, true heart," replied Geraint, "but 
arms : 
That if, as I suppose, your nephew fights 
In nest day's tourney I may break his pride." 



152 



ENID. 



Aud Yuiol answer'd; "Arms, indeed, but old 
And rusty, old aud rusty, Prince Geraint, 
Are mine, aud therefore at your asking, yours, 
But in this tournament cau no man tilt, 
Except the lady he loves best be there. 
Two forks are flxt into the meadow ground, 
And over these is laid a silver wand, 
And over that is placed the sparrow-hawk. 
The prize of beauty for the fairest there. 
And this, what knight soever be in field 
Lays claim to for the lady at his side. 
And tilts with my good nephew thereupon, 
Who being apt at arms and big of boue 
Has ever won it for the lady with him, 
Aud toppling over all antagonism 
Has earn'd himself the name of sparrow-hawk. 
But you, that have no lady, cannot light." 

To whom Geraint with eyes all bright replied, 
Leaning a little toward him, "Your leave! 
Let yne lay lance in rest, O noble host, 
For this dear child, because I never saw, 
Tho' having seen all beauties of our time, 
Nor can see elsewhere, anything so fair. 
And if 1 fall her name will yet remain 
Untaruish'd as before ; but if I live, 
So aid me Heaven when at mine uttermost, 
As I will make her truly my true wife." 

Then, howsoever patient, Yniol's heart 
Danced in his bosom, seeing better days. 
And looking round he saw not Enid there, 
(Who hearing her own name had slipt away) 
But that old dame, to whom full tenderly 
Aud fondling all her hand in his he said, 
" Mother, a maiden is a tender thing. 
And best by her that bore her understood. 
Go thou to rest, but ere thou go to rest 
Tell her, and prove her heart toward the Prince." 

So spake the kindly-hearted Earl, and she 
With frequent smile and nod departing found. 
Half disarray'd as to her rest, the girl ; 
Whom first she kiss'd on either cheek, and then 
On either shining shoulder laid a hand. 
And kept her off and gazed upon her face, 
And told her all their converse in the hall, 
Proving her heart ; but never light and shade 
Coursed one another more on open ground 
Beneath a troubled heaven, than red and pale 
Across the face of Enid hearing her ; 
Whilst slowly falling as a scale that falls, 
Wheu weight is added only grain by grain, 
Sank her sweet head upon her gentle breast ; 
Nor did she lift an eye nor speak a word, 
Rapt iu the fear and in the wonder of it ; 
So moving without answer to her rest 
She found no rest, and ever fail'd to draw 
The quiet night into her blood, but lay 
Contemplating her own nnworthiness ; 
And when the pale and bloodless east began 
To quicken to the sun, arose, and raised 
Her mother too, and hand in hand they moved 
Down to the meadow where the jousts were held, 
And waited there for Yniol and Geraint. 

And thither came the twain, and when Geraint 
Beheld her first in field, awaiting him, 
He felt, were she the prize of bodily force. 
Himself beyond the rest pushing could move 
The chair of Idris. Yniol's rusted arms 
Were on his princely person, but thro' these 
Princelike his bearing shone ; and errant knights 
And ladies came, and by and by the town 
Flow'd in, and settling circled all the lists. 
And there they fixt the forks into the ground, 
And over these they placed a silver wand. 
And over that a golden sparrow-hawk. 



Then Yniol's nephew, after trumpet blown, 
Spake to the lady with him and proclaim'd, 
"Advance and take as fairest of the fair, 
For I these two years past have won i* for thee. 
The prize of beauty." Loudly spake the Prince, 
"Forbear: there is a worthier," aud the knight 
With some surprise and thrice as much disdain 
Turn'd, and beheld the four, aud all his face 
Glow'd like the heart of a great fire at Yule, 
So burnt he was with passion, crying out, 
" Do battle for it then," no more ; and thrice 
They clash'd together, and thrice they brake their 

spears. 
Then each, dishorsed and drawiug, lash'd at each 
So often, and with such blows, that all the crowd 
Wonder'd, and now and then from distant walls 
There came a clapping as of phantom hands. 
So twice they fought, and twice they breathed, and 

still 
The dew of their great labor, aud the blood 
Of their strong bodies, flowiug, drain'd their force. 
But either's force was match'd till Yniol's cry, 
"Remember that great insult done the Queen," 
Increased Geraiut's, who heaved his blade aloft. 
And crack'd the helmet thro', and bit the bone, 
Aud fell'd him, aud set foot upon his breast. 
And said, "Thy name?" To whom the fallen man 
Made answer, groaning, "Edyrn, son of Nudd ! 
Ashamed am 1 that I should tell it thee. 
My pride is broken: men have seen my fall." 
"Then, Edyrn, son of Nudd," replied Geraint, 
"These two things shalt thou do, or else thou diest. 
First, thou thyself, thy lady aud thy dwarf, 
Shalt ride to Arthur's court, and being there. 
Crave pardon for that insult done the Queen, 
And shalt abide her judgment on it; next. 
Thou shalt give back their earldom to thy kin. 
These two things shalt thou do, or thou shalt die." 
And Edyrn answer'd, "These things will I do. 
For I have never yet been overthrown, 
And thou hast overthrown me, and my pride 
Is broken down, for Enid sees my fall 1" 
And rising up, he rode to Arthur's court, 
And there the Queen forgave him easily. 
Aud being young, he changed himself, and grew 
To hate the sin that seem'd so like his own. 
Of Modred, Arthur's nephew, and fell at last 
In the great battle fighting for the king. 

But when the third day from the hunting-morn 
Made a low splendor in the world, and wings 
Moved in her ivy, Enid, for she lay 
With her fair head in the dim-yellow light. 
Among the dancing shadows of the birds. 
Woke aud bethought her of her promise given 
No later than last eve to Priuce Geraint— 
So bent he eeeni'd ou going the third day. 
He would not leave her, till her promise given — 
To ride with him this morning to the court, 
Aud there be made known to the stately Queen, 
And there be wedded with all ceremony. 
At this she cast her eyes upon her dress, 
Aud thought it never yet had look'd so mean. 
For as a leaf in mid-November is 
To what it was iu mid-October, seem'd 
The dress that now she look'd on to the dress 
She look'd on ere the coming of Geraint. 
Aud still she look'd, and still the terror grew 
Of that strange bright and dreadful thing, a court. 
All staring at her in her faded silk : 
And softly to her own sweet heart she said: 

"T-'his noble Prince who won our earldom back, 
So splendid in his acts aud his attire. 
Sweet heaven ! how much I shall discredit him ! 
Would he could tarry with ns here awhile '. 
But being so beholden to the Prince 
It were but little grace in any of us, 



ENID. 



153 



Bent as he seem'd on going this third day, 
To seek a second favor at his hands. 
Yet if he could but tarry a day or two, 
Myself would work eye dim, and finger lame. 
Far liefer than so much discredit him." 

And Enid fell in longing for a dress 
All brauch'd and flower'd with gold, a costly gift 
Of her good mother, given her on the night 
Before her birthday, three sad years ago, 
That night of fire, when Edyrn sack'd their house, 
And scattev'd all they had to all the winds : 
For while the mother show'd it, and the two 
Were turning and admiring it, the work 
To both appear'd so costly, rose a cry 
That Edyrn's men were on them, and they fled 
With little save the jewels they had on. 
Which being sold and sold had bought them bread : 
And Edyrn's men had caught them in their flight, 
And placed them in this ruin ; and she wish'd 
The Prince had found her in her ancient home ; 
Then let her fancy flit across ^the past, 
Aud roam the goodly places that she knew; 
And last bethought her how she used to watch, 
Near that old home, a pool of golden carp ; 
And one was patch'd and blurr'd and lustreless 
Among his burnish'd brethren of the pool ; 
And half asleep she made comparison 
Of that and these to her own faded self 
And the gay court, and fell asleep again ; 
And dreamt herself was such a faded form 
Among her burnish'd sisters of the pool ; 
But this was in the garden of a king ; 
And tho' she lay dark in the pool, she knew 
That all was bright; that all about were birds 
Of sunny plume in gilded trellis-work ; 
That all the turf was rich in plots that look'd 
Each like a garnet or a turkis In it; 
And lords and ladies of the high court went 
In silver tissue talking things of state ; 
And children of the king in cloth of gold 
Glanced at the doors or gambol'd down the walks : 
And while she thought "they will noteee me," came 
A stately queen whose name was Guinevere, 
Aud all the children in their cloth of gold 
Ran to her, crying, "If we have fish at all 
Let them be gold : and charge the gardeners now 
To pick the faded creature from the pool. 
And cast it on the mixen that it die." 
And therewithal one came and seized on her, 
And Euid started waking, with her heart 
All overshadow'd by the foolish dream. 
And lo ! it was her mother grasping her 
To get her well awake; and in her hand 
A suit of bright apparel, which she laid 
Flat on the couch, and spoke exultiugly; 

"•See here, my child, how fresh the colors look. 
How fast they hold, like colors of a shell 
That keeps the wear and polish of the wave. 
Why not ? it never yet was worn, I trow ; 
Look on it, child, and tell me if you know it." 

And Enid look'd, but all confused at first. 
Could scarce divide it from her foolish dream, 
Then suddenly she knew it and rejoiced. 
And answer'd, " Yea, I know it : your good gift, 
So sadly lost on that unhappy night : 
Your own good gift !" " Yea, surely," said the dame, 
"And gladly given again this happy morn. 
For when the jousts were ended yesterday. 
Went Yniol thro' the town, and everywhere 
He found the sack and plunder of our house 
All scatter'd thro' the houses of the town : 
And gave command that all which once was ours, 
Should now be ours again : and yester-eve. 
While you were talking sweetly with your Prince, 
Came one with this and laid it in my hand, 



For love or fear, or seeking favor of us. 

Because we have our earldom back again. 

And yester-eve I would not tell you of it. 

But kept it for a sweet surprise at morn. 

Yea, truly is it not a sweet surprise? 

For I myself unwillingly have worn 

My faded suit, as you, my child, have yours. 

And howsoever patient, Yniol his. 

Ah, dear, he took me from a goodly house. 

With store of rich apparel, sumptuous fare. 

And page, and maid, and squire, aud seneschal, 

And pastime, both of hawk and hound, and all 

That appertains to noble maintenance. 

Yea, and he brought me to a goodly house .- 

But since our fortune slipt from sun to shade, 

Aud all thro' that young traitor, cruel need 

Constrain'd us, but a better time has come ; 

So clothe yourself in this, that better fits 

Our mended fortunes and a Prince's bride: 

For tho' you won the prize of fairest fair, 

And tho' I heard him call you fairest fair, 

Let never maiden think, however fair, 

She is not fairer in new clothes than old. 

And should some great court-lady say, the Prince 

Hath pick'd a ragged-robin from the hedge, 

And like a madman brought her to the court, 

Then were you shamed, and worse, might shame the 

Prince 
To whom we are beholden ; but I know, 
When my dear child is set forth at her best. 
That neither court nor country, tho' they sought 
Thro' all the provinces like those of old 
That lighted on Queen Esther, has her match.'' 

Here ceased the kindly mother out of breath ; 
And Euid listeu'd brightening as she lay; 
Then, as the white and glittering star of morn 
Parts from a bank of snow, and by and by 
Slips into golden cloud, the maiden rose. 
And left her maiden couch, aud robed herself, 
Help'd by the mother's careful baud and eye, 
Without a mirror, in the gorgeous gown : 
Who, after, turn'd her daughter round, and said. 
She never yet had seen her half so fair ; 
Aud call'd her like that maiden in the tale. 
Whom Gwydion made by glamour out of flowers, 
Aud sweeter than the bride of Cassivelaun, 
Flur, for whose love the Roman Coesar first 
Invaded Britain, "but we beat him back. 
As this great Prince invaded us, and we. 
Not beat him back, but welcomed him with joy. 
And I can scarcely ride with you to court. 
For old am I, and rough the ways and wild : 
But Yniol goes, and I full oft shall dream 
I see my princess as I see her now, 
Cloth'd with my gift, and gay among the gay." 

But while the women thus rejoiced, Geraint 
Woke where he slept in the high hall, and call'd 
For Enid, and when Yniol made report 
Of that good mother making Enid gay 
In such apparel as might well beseem 
His princess, or indeed the stately queen, 
He answer'd, " Earl, entreat her by my love, 
Albeit I give no reason but my wish. 
That she ride with me in her faded silk." 
Yniol with that hard message went: it fell. 
Like flaws in summer laying lusty corn : 
For Enid, all abash'd, she knew not why. 
Dared not to glance at her good mother's face, 
But silently, in all obedience. 
Her mother silent too, nor helping her. 
Laid from her limbs the costly-broider'd gift, 
And robed them in her ancient suit again, 
And so descended. Never man rejoiced 
More than Geraint to greet her thus attired : 
And glancing all at once as keenly at her. 
As careful robins eye the delver's toil, 



154 



ENID. 



Made her cheek burn and either eyelid fall, 
But rested with her sweet face satisfied ; 
Then seeing cloud upon the mother's brow, 
Her by both hands he caught, and sweetly said : 

" O my new mother, be not wroth or grieved 
At your new son, for my petition to her. 
When late I left Caerleon, our great Queen, 
In words whose echo lasts, they were so sweet, 
Made promise that whatever bride 1 brought. 
Herself would clothe her like the sun in Heaven. 
Thereafter, when 1 reach'd this ruiu'd hold, 
Beholding one so bright in dark estate, 
I vow'd that could I gain her, our kind Queen, 
No hand but hers, should make your Enid burst 
Sunlike from cloud — and likewise thought perhaps, 
That service done so graciously would bind 
The two together; for I wish the two 
To love each other: how should Enid find 
A nobler friend ? Another thought I had ; 
I came among you here so suddenly, 
That tho' her gentle presence at the lists 
Might we)l have served for proof that I was loved, 
I doubted whether filial tenderness. 
Or easy nature, did not let itself 
Be moulded by your wishes for her weal ; 
Or whether some false sense in her own self 
Of my contrasting brightness, overbore 
Her fancy dwelling in this dusky hall ; 
And such a sense might make her long for court 
And all its dangerous glories: and I thought. 
That could I someway prove such force in her 
Link'd with such love for me, that at a word 
(No reason given her) she could cast aside 
A splendor dear to women, new to her. 
And therefore dearer ; or if not so new, 
Yet therefore tenfold dearer by the power 
Of intermitted custom ; then 1 felt 
That I could rest, a rock in ebbs and flows, 
Fixt on her faith. Now, therefore, I do rest, 
A prophet certain of my prophecy. 
That never shadow of mistrust can cross 
Between us. Grant me pardon for my thoughts: 
And for my strange petition I will make 
Amends hereafter by some gaudy-day. 
When your fair child shall wear your costly gift 
Beside your own warm hearth, with, on her knees, 
Who knows ? another gift of the high God, 
Wliich, maybe, shall have learn'd to lisp you thanks." 

He spoke : the mother smiled, but half in tears. 
Then brought a mantle down and wrapt her iu it. 
And claspt and kiss'd her, and they rode away. 

Now thrice that morning Guinevere had climb'd 
The giant tower, from whose high crest, they say, 
Men saw the goodly hills of Somerset, 
And white sails flying on the yellow sea; 
But not to goodly hill or yellow sea 
Look'd the fair Queen, but up the vale of Usk, 
By the flat meadow, till she saw them come; 
And then descending met them at the gates, 
Embraced her with all welcome as a friend, 
And did her honor as the Prince's bride, 
And clothed her for her bridals like the sun ; 
And all that week was old Caerleon gay. 
For by the hands of Dnbric, the high saint, 
They twain were wedded with all ceremony. 

And this was on the last year's Whitsuntide. 
But Enid ever kept the faded silk, 
Remembering how first he came on her, 
Drest in that dress, and ho.w he loved her in it. 
And all her foolish fears about the dress. 
And all his journey toward her, as himself 
Had told her, and their coming to the court. 

And now this morning when he said to her, 
'• Put on your worst and meanest dress," she found 
And took it, and array'd herself therein. 



O purblind race of miserable men, 
How many among us at this very hour 
Do forge a life-long trouble for ourselves, 
By taking true for false, or false for true; 
Here, thro' the feeble twilight of this world 
Groping, how many, until we pass and reach 
That other, where we see as we are seen ! 

So fared it with Geraint, who issuing forth 
That morning, when they both had got to horse. 
Perhaps because he loved her passionately, 
And felt that tempest brooding round his heart, 
Which, if he spoke at all, would break perforce 
Upon a head so dear iu thunder, said : 
"Not at my side! I charge you ride before. 
Ever a good way on before ; and this 
I charge you, on your duty as a wife. 
Whatever happens, not to speak to me. 
No, not a word !" and Enid was aghast ; 
And forth they rode, but scarce three paces on, 
When crying out, "Effeminate as I am, 
I will not fight my Avay with gilded arms, 
All shall be iron;" he loosed a mighty purse, 
Hung at his belt, and hurl'd it toward the squire. . 
So the last sight that Enid had of home 
Was all the marble threshold flashing, strewn 
With gold and scatter'd coinage, and the squire 
Chafing his shoulder; then he cried again, 
"To the wilds:" and Enid leading down the tracks 
Thro' which he bade her lead him on, they past 
The marches, and by bandit-haunted holds. 
Gray swamps and pools, waste places of the hern. 
And wildernesses, perilous paths, they rode : 
Round was their pace at first, but slacken'd soon : 
A stranger meeting them had surely thought, 
They rode so slowly and they look'd so pale. 
That each had sufler'd some exceeding wrong. 
For he was ever saying to himself, 
"0 1 that wasted time to tend upon her, 
To compass her with sweet observances. 
To dress her. beautifully and keep her true "— 
And there he broke the sentence iu his heart 
Abruptly, as a man upon his tongue 
May break it, when his passion masters him. 
And she was ever praying the sweet heavens 
To save her dear lord whole from any wound. 
And ever in her mind she cast about 
For that unnoticed failing in herself. 
Which made him look so cloudy and so cold ; 
Till the great plover's human whistle amazed 
•Her heart, and glancing round the waste she fear'd 
In every wavering brake an ambuscade. 
Then thought again " If there be such in me, 
I might amend it bj' the grace of heaven. 
If he would only speak and tell me of it." 

But when the fourth part of the daj' was gone. 
Then Enid was aware of three tall knights 
On horseback, wholly arra'd, behind a rock 
In shadow, waiting for them, caitifts all ; 
And heard one crying to his fellow, "Look, 
Here comes a laggard hanging down his head. 
Who seems no bolder than a beaten hound; 
Come, we will slay him, and will have his horse 
And armor, and his damsel shall he ours." 

Then Enid ponder'd in her heart, and said: 
" I will go back a little to my lord, 
And I will tell him all their caitiff talk; 
For, be he wroth even to slaying me, 
Far liever by his dear hand had I die, 
Than that my lord should suffer loss or shame." 

Then she went back some paces of return, 
Met his full frown timidly firm, and said : 
"My lord, I saw three bandits by the rock 
W.aiting to fall on you, and heard them boast 
That they would slay yon, and possess your horse 
And armor, and your damsel should be theirs." 



ENID. 



155 



He made a wrathful answer. " Did I wish 
Your waruing or your silence ? one command 
i laid upon you, not to speak to me, 
And thus you keep it ! Well then, look— for now. 
Whether you wish me victory or defeat, 
Long for my life, or hunger ifor my death, 
Yourself shall see my vigor is not lost." 

Then Enid waited, pale and sorrowful, - — , 
And down upon him bare the bandit three. 
And at the midmost charging, Prince Geraint 
Drave the long spear a cubit thro' his breast 
And out beyond ; and then against his brace 
Of comrades, each of whom had broken on him 
A lance that splinter'd like an icicle. 
Swung from his brand a windy buffet out 
Once, twice, to right, to left, and stuun'd the twain 
Or slew them, and dismounting like a man 
That skins the wild beast after slaying him, 
Stript from the three dead wolves of woman born 
The three gay suits of armor which they wore, 
And let the bodies lie, but bound the suits 
Of armor on their horses, each on each. 
And tied the bridle-reins of all the three 
Together, and said to her, "Drive them on 
Before you ;" and she drove them thro' the waste. 

He follow'd nearer: ruth began to work 
Against his anger in him, while he watch'd 
The being he loved best in all the world, 
With difficulty in mild obedience 
Driving them on: he fain had spoken to her. 
And loosed in words of sudden fire the wrath 
And smoulder'd wrong that burnt him all within ; 
But evermore it seem'd an easier thing 
At once without remorse to strike her dead. 
Than to cry "Halt," and to her own bright face 
Accuse her of the least immodesty : 
And thus tongue-tied, it made him wroth the more 
That she could speak whom his own ear had heard 
Call herself false : and suffering thus he made 
Minutes an age : but in scarce longer time 
Than at Caerleon the full-tided Usk, 
Before he turn to fall seaward again, 
Pauses, did Enid, keeping watch, behold 
In the first shallow shade of a deep wood, 
Before a gloom of stubborn-shafted oaks, 
Three other horsemen waiting, wholly arm'd, 
Whereof one seem'd far larger than her lord, 
And shook her pulses, crying, " Look, a prize ! 
Three horses and three goodly suits of arms, 
And all in charge of whom ? a girl : set on." 
"Nay," said the second, "yonder comes a knight.'' 
The third, "A craven ! how he hangs his head." 
The giant answer'd merrily, "Yea, but one? 
Wait here, and when he passes fall upon him." 

And Enid ponder'd in her heart and said, 
"I will abide the coming of my lord, 
And I will tell him all their villany. 
My lord is weary with the fight before. 
And they will fall upon him unawares. 
I needs must disobey him for his good ; 
How should I dare obey him to his harm ? 
Needs must I speak, and tho' he kill me for it, 
I save a life dearer to me than mine." 

And she abode his coming, and said to him 
With timid firmness, "Have I leave to speak?" 
He said, " You take it, speaking," and she spoke. 

"There lurk three villains yonder in the wood. 
And each of them is wholly arm'd, and one 
Is larger-limb'd than you are, and they say 
That they will fall upon you while you pass." 

To which he flung a wrathful answer back : 
" And if there were an hundred in the wood. 



And every man were larger-limb'd than I, 
And all at once should sally out upon me, 
I swear it would not rufile me so much 
As you that not obey me. Stand aside. 
And if I fall, cleave to the better man." 

And Enid stood aside to wait the event. 
Not dare to watch the combat, only breathe 
Short fits of prayer, at every stroke a breath. 
And he, she dreaded most, bare down upon him. 
Aim'd at the helm, his lance err'd ; but Geraint's, 
A little in the late encounter strain'd. 
Struck thro' the bulky bandit's corselet home, 
And then brake short, and down his enemy roll'd 
And there lay still ; as he that tells the tale. 
Saw once a great piece of a promontory. 
That had a sapling growing on it, slip 
From the long shore-cliff s windy walls to the beach. 
And there lie still, and yet the sapling grew: 
So lay the man trausfixt. His craven pair 
Of comrades, making slowlier at the Prince, 
When now they saw their bulwark fallen, stood i 
On whom the victor, to confound them more, 
Spurr'd with his terrible war-cry ; for as one. 
That listens near a torrent mountain-brook. 
All thro' the crash of the near cataract hears 
The drumming thunder of the huger ftiU 
At distance, were the soldiers wont to hear 
His voice in battle, and be kindled by it, 
And foemen scared, like that false pair who tum'd 
Flying, but, overtaken, died the death * 

Themselves had wrought on many an innocent. 

Thereon Geraint, dismounting, pick'd the lance 
That pleased him best, and drew from those dead 

wolves 
Their three gay suits of armor, each from each, 
And bound them on their horses, each on each. 
And tied the bridle-reins of all the three 
Together, and said to her, "Drive them on 
Before yon," and she drove them thro' the wood. 

He follow'd nearer still ; thg pain she had 
To keep them in the wild ways of the wood. 
Two sets of three laden with jingling arms. 
Together, served a little to disedge 
The sharpness of that pain about her heart ; 
And they themselves, like creatures gently born 
But into bad hands fall'n, andf now so long 
By bandits groom'd, prick'd their light ears, and felt 
Her low firm voice and tender government. 

So thro' the green gloom oi the wood they past. 
And issuing under open heavens beheld 
A little town with towers, upon a rock. 
And close beneath, a meadow gemlike chased 
In the brown wild, and mowers mowing in it: 
And down a rocky pathway from the place 
There came a fair-haired youth, that in his hand 
Bare victual for the mowers : and Geraint 
Had ruth again on Enid looking pale : 
Then, moving downward to the meadow ground, 
He, when the fair-hair'd youth came by him', said, 
"Friend, let her eat; the damsel is so faint." • 
" Yea, willingly," replied the youth ; "and you, 
My lord, eat also, tho' the fare is coarse. 
And only meet for mowers ;" then set down 
His basket, and dismounting on the sward 
They let the horses graze and ate themselves. 
And Enid took a little delicately. 
Less having stomach for it than desire 
To close with her lord's pleasure ; but Geraint 
Ate all the mowers' victual unawares. 
And when he found all empty, was amaz'd : 
And "Boy," said he, "I have eaten all, but take 
A horse and arms for guerdon ; choose the best." 
He, reddening in extremity of detisht, 
"My lord, you overpay me fifty fold." 



156 



ENID. 



"You will be all the wealthier," cried the Priuce. 

" I take it as free gift, then," said the boy, 

" Not guerdon ; for myself can easily, 

While your good damsel rests, return, and fetch 

Fresh victual for these mowers of our Earl ; 

For these are his, and all the field is his, 

And I myself am his ; and I will tell him 

How great a man you are ; he loves to know 

When men of mark are in his territory • 

And he will have you to his palace here. 

And serve you costlier than with mowers' fare." 

Then said Geraiiit, "I wish no better fare: 
I never ate with angrier appetite 
Than when I left your mowers diunerless. 
And into no Earl's palace will I go. 
I know, God knows, too much of palaces! 
And if he want me, let him come to me. 
But hire us some fair chamber for the night, 
And stalling for the horses, and return 
With victual for these men, and let us know." 

" Yea, my kind lord," said the glad youth, and went. 
Held his head high, and thought himself a knight, 
And up the rocky pathway disappear'd. 
Leading the horse, and they were left alone. 

But when the Prince had brought his errant eyes 
Home from the rock, sideways he let them glance 
At Enid, where she droopt: his own false doom, 
That shadow of mistrust should never cross 
Betwixt them, came upou him, and he sigh'd; 
Then with another humorous ruth remark'd 
The lusty mowers laboring dinnerless, 
And watch'd the sun blaze on the turning scythe, 
And after nodded sleepily in the heat. 
But she, remembering her old ruin'd hall. 
And all the windy clamor of the daws 
About her hollow turret, pluck'd the grass 
There growing longest by the meadow's edge, 
And into many a listless amulet, 
Now over, now beneath her marriage ring. 
Wove and unwove it, till the boy return'd 
And told them of a chamber, and they went; 
Where, after saying to her, " If you will. 
Call for the woman of the house,"' to which 
She answer'd, " Thanks, my lord ;" the two remain'd 
Apart by all the chamber's width, and mute . 
As creatures voiceless thro' the fault of birth. 
Or two wild men supporters of a shield. 
Painted, who stare at open space, nor glance 
The one at other, parted by the shield. 

On a sudden, many a voice along the street, 
And heel against the pavement echoing, burst 
Their drowse; and either started while the door, 
Push'd from without, drave backward to the wall. 
And midmost of a rout of roisterers. 
Femininely fair and dissolutely pale. 
Her suitor in old years before Geraint, 
Enter'd, the wild lord of the place, Limours. 
He moving up with pliant courtliness. 
Greeted Geraint full face, but stealthily, 
Ilk the mid-warmth of welcome and graspt hand, 
Found Enid with the corner of his eye, 
And knew her sitting sad and solitary. 
Then cried Geraint for wine and goodly cheer 
To feed the sudden guest, and sumptuously 
According to his fashion, bade the host 
Call in what men soever were his friends. 
And feast with these in honor of their earl ; 
"And care not for the cost; the cost is mine." 

And wine and food were brought, and Earl Limours 
Drank till he jested with all ease, and told 
Free tales, and took the word and play'd upon it. 
And made it of two colors ; for his talk, 
When wine and free companions kindled him, 



'y 



Was wont to glance and sparkle like a gem 
Of fifty facets ; thus he moved the Prince 
To laughter and his comrades to applause. 
Then, when the Prince was merry, ask'd Limours, 
" Your leave, my lord, to cross the room, and speak 
To your good damsel there who sits apart 
And seems so lonely?" "My free leave," he said; 
"Get her to speak: she does not speak to me." 
Then rose Limours and looking at his feet. 
Like him who tries the bridge he fears may fail, 
Crost and came near, lifted adoring eyes, 
Bow'd at her side and utter'd whisperingly ; 



' Enid, the pilot star of my lone life, 
Enid my early and my only love, 
Enid the loss of whom has turn'd me wild— 
What chance is this? how is it I see you here? 
You are in my power at last, are in my power. 
Yet fear me not : I call mine own self wild, 
But keep a touch of sweet civility 
Here in the heart of waste and wilderness. 
I thought, but that your father came between. 
In former days you saw me favorably. 
And if it were so do not keep it back : 
Make me a little hajjpier: let me know it: 
Owe you me nothing for a life half-lost? 
"i'ea, yea, the whole dear debt of all you are. 
And, Enid, you and he, I see it with joy— 
You sit apart, you do not speak to him, 
You come with no attendance, page or maid, 
To serve you — does he love you as of old? 
For, call it lovers' quarrels, yet I know 
Tho' men may bicker with the things they love, 
They would not make them laughable in all ej'es, 
Not while they loved them ; and your wretched dress, 
A wretched iusult on you, dnmbly speaks 
Your story, that this man loves you no more. 
Your beauty is no beauty to him now: 
A common chance— right well I know it— pall'd — 
For I know men : nor will you win him back, 
For the man's love once gone never returns. 
But here is one who loves you as of old ; 
With more, exceeding passion than of old: 
Good, speak the word : my followers ring him round : 
He sits unarm'd: I hold a finger up; 
They understand: no; I do not mean blood: 
Nor need you look so scared at what I say: 
My malice is no deeper than a moat. 
No stronger than a wall : there is the keep ; 
He shall not cross us more ; speak but the word : 
Or speak it not; but then by Him that made me 
The one true lover which you ever had, 
I will make use of all the power I have. 
O pardon me ! the madness of that hour. 
When first I parted from you, moves me yet." 

At this the tender sound of his own voice 
And sweet self-pity, or the fancy of it. 
Made his eye moist ; but Enid fear'd his eyes. 
Moist as they were, wine-heated from the feast ; 
And answer'd with such craft as women use. 
Guilty or guiltless, to stave ofi" a chance 
That breaks upon them perilously, and said: 

" Earl, if you love me as in former years. 
And do not practise on me, come with morn. 
And snatch me' from him as by violence; 
Leave me to-night: I am weary to the death." 

Low at leave-taking, with his brandish'd plume 
Brushing his instep, bow'd the all-amorous Earl, 
And the stout Prince bade him a loud good-night 
He moving homeward babbled to his men. 
How Enid never loved a man but him. 
Nor cared a broken egg-shell for her lord. 

But Enid left alone with Prince Geraint, 
Debating his command of silence given, 



ENID. 



ir>7 



And that she now perforce must violate it, 

Held commune with herself, and while she held 

He fell asleep, and Enid had no heart 

To wake him, but hung o'er him, wholly pleased 

To find him yet uuwounded after flght, 

And hear him breathing low and equally. 

Anon she rose, and stepping lightly, heap'd 

The pieces of his armor in one place. 

All to be there against a sudden need ; 

Then dozed awhile herself, but overtoil'd 

By that day's grief and travel, evermore 

Seem'd catching at a rootless thorn, and then 

Went slipping down horrible precipices, 

And strongly striking ont her iimbs awoke; 

Then thought she heard the wild Earl at the door, 

With all his rout of random followers, 

Sound on a dreadful trumpet, summoning her; 

Which was the red cock shouting to the light, 

As the gray dawn stole o'er the dewy world, 

And glimmer'd on his armor in the room. 

And once again she rose to look at it, 

But touch 'd it unawares : jangling, the casque 

Fell, and he started up and stared at her. 

Then breaking his command of silence given. 

She told him all that Earl Limours had said, 

Except the passage that he loved her not ; 

Nor left untold the craft herself had used; 

But ended with apology so sweet, 

Low-spoken, and of so few words, and seem'd 

So justified by that necessity, 

That tho' he thought "was it for him she wept 

In Devon?" he but gave a wrathful groan. 

Saying " your sweet faces make good fellows fools 

And traitors. Call the host and bid him bring 

Charger and palfrey." So she glided out 

Among the heavy breathings of the house, 

And like a household Spirit at the walls 

Beat, till she woke the sleepers, and return'd : 

Then tending her rough lord, tho' all unask'd. 

In silence, did him service as a squire ; 

Till issuing arm'd he found the host and cried, 

"Thy reckoning, friend?" and ere he learnt it, "Take 

Five horses and their armors;" and the host, 

Suddenly honest, answer'd in amaze, 

"My lord, I scarce have spent the worth of one!" 

"You will be all the wealthier," said the Prince, 

And then to Enid, "Forward! and to-day 

I charge you, Enid, more especially. 

What thing soever you may hear or see, 

Or fancy (tho' I count it of small use 

To charge you), that you speak not but obey." 

And Enid answer'd, " Yea, my lord, I know 
Your wish, and would obey : but riding first, 
I hear the violent threats you do not hear, 
I see the danger which you cannot see ; 
Then not to give you warning, that seems hard: 
Almost beyond me: yet I would obey." 

"Yea so," said he, " do it: be not too wise; 
Seeing that you are wedded to a man. 
Not quite mismated with a yawning clown, 
But one with arms to guard his head and yours, 
With eyes to find you out however far. 
And ears to hear you even in his dreams." 

With that he turned and looked as keenly at her 
As careful robins eye the delver's toil ; 
Aud that within her which a wanton fool. 
Or hasty judger, would have called her guilt, 
Made her cheek burn and either eyelid fall. 
Aud Geraiut look'd and was not satisfied. 

Then forward by a way which, beaten broad, 
Led from the territory of false Limours 
To the waste earldom of another earl, 
Doorm, whom his shaking vassals call'd the Bull, 
Went Enid with her sullen follower on. 
Once she look'd back, aud when she saw him ride 



More near by many a rood than yestermorn. 

It wellnigh made her cheerful: till Geraiut 

Waving an angry hand as who should say 

" You watch me," saddened all her heart again. 

But while the sun yet beat a dewy blade. 

The sound of many a heavily-galloping hoof 

Smote on her ear, and turning round she saw 

Dust, and the points of lances bicker in it. 

Then not to disobey her lord's behest, 

Aud yet to give him warning, for he rode 

As if he heard not, moving back she held 

Her finger up, and pointed to the dust. 

At which the warrior in his obstinacy, 

Because she kept the letter of his word 

Was in a manner pleaded, and turning, stood. 

And in the moment after, wild Limours, 

Borne on a black horse, like a thunder-cloud 

Whose skirts are loosen'd by the breaking storm, 

Half ridden ofi' with by the thing he rode. 

And all in passion uttering a dry shriek, 

Dash'd on Geraiut, who closed with him and bore 

Down by the length of lance aud arm beyond 

The crupper, and so left him stunn'd or dead, 

And overthrew the next that follow'd hhn, 

And blindly rush'd on all the rout behind. 

But at the flash and motion of the man 

They vanish'd panic-stricken, like a shoal 

Of dartiug fish, that on a summer morn 

Adown the crystal dikes at Camelot 

Come slipping o'er their shadows on the sand, 

But if a man who stands upon the brink 

But lift a shiniug hand against the sun. 

There is not left the twinkle of a fin 

Betwixt the cressy islets white in flower; 

So, scared but at the motion of the man. 

Fled all the boon companions of the Earl, 

And left him lying in the public way: 

So vanish friendships only made in wine. 

Then like a stormy sunlight smiled Geraiut, 
Who saw the chargers of the two that fell 
Start from their fallen lords, and wildly fly, 
Mixt with the flyers. "Horse and man," he said, 
" All of one mind and all right-houest friends ! 
Not a hoof left ; aud I methinks till now 
Was honest — paid with horses and with arms: 
I cannot steal or plunder, no nor beg : 
And so what say you, shall we strip him there 
Your lover? has your palfrey heart enough 
To bear his armor ? shall we fast or dine ? 
No ? — then do you, being right honest, pray 
That we may meet the horsemen of Earl Doorm, 
I too would still be honest." Thus he said: 
And sadly gazing on her bridle-reins, 
And answering not one word, she led the way. 

But as a man to whom a dreadful loss 
Falls in a far land and he knows it not, 
But coming back he learus it, and the loss 
So pains him that he sickens nigh to death ; 
So fared it with Geraint, who being prick'd 
In combat vrith the follower of Limours, 
Bled underneath his armor secretly, 
And so rode on, nor told his gentle wife 
What ail'd him, hardly knowiug it himself, 
Till his eye darken'd and his helmet wagg'd ; 
And at a sudden swerving of the road, 
Tho' happily down on a bank of grass, 
The Prince, without a word, from his horse fell. 

And Enid heard the clashing of his fall, 
Suddenly came, and at his side all pale 
Dismounting, loosed the fastenings of his arms, 
Nor let her true hand falter, nor blue eye 
Moisten, till she had lighted on his wound, 
Aud tearing off her veil of faded silk 
Had bared her forehead to the blistering sun, 
And swathed the hurt that drain'd her dear lord's life. 



158 ENID. 

Then alter all was doue that haud could do, 
She rested, and her desolation came 
Upon her, and she wept beside the way. 

And many past, but none regarded her, 
For in that realm of lawless turbulence, 
A woman weeping for her murder'd mate 
Was cared as much for as a summer shower: 
One took him for a victim of Earl Doorm, 
Nor dared to waste a perilous pity on him: 
Another hurrying past, a man-at-arms, 
Rode ou a mission to the bandit Earl ; 
Half whistling and half singing a coarse song. 
He drove the dust against her veilless eyes : 
Another, flying from the wrath of Doorm 
Before an ever-fancied arrow, made 
The long way smoke beneath him m his fear; 
At which her palfrey whinnying lifted heel. 
And scour'd into the coppices and was lost, 
While the great charger stood, grieved like a man. 

But at the point of noon the huge Earl Doorm, 
Broad-faced with under-fringe of russet beard. 
Bound ou a foray, rolling eyes of prey. 
Came riding with a hundred lances up ; 
But ere he came, like one that hails a ship, 
Cried out with a big voice, "What, is he dead?" 
"No, no, not dead!" she answer'd in all haste. 
" Would some of your kind people take him up. 
And bear him hence out of this cruel sun ; 
Most sure am I, quite sure, he is not dead." 

Then said Earl Doorm: "Well, if he be not dead, 
Why wail you for him thus? you seem a child. 
And be he dead, I count you for a fool : 
Your wailing will not quicken him: dead or not, 
Yovp mar a comely face with idiot tears. 
Yet, since the face is comely — some of you, 
Here, take bim up, and bear him to our hall : 
And if he live, we will have him of our band ; 
And if he die, why earth has earth enough 
To hide him. See ye take the charger too, 
A noble one." 

He spake, and past away. 
But left two brawny spearmen, who advanced. 
Each growling like a dog, when his good bone 
Seems to be pluck'd at by the village boys 
Who love to vex him eating, and he fears 
To lose his bone, and lays his foot upon it, 
Gnawing and growling; so the ruffians growl'd. 
Fearing to lose, and all for a dead man. 
Their chance of booty from the morning's raid ; 
Yet raised and laid him on a litter-bier. 
Such as they brought upon their forays out 
For those that might be wounded ; laid him on it 
All in the hollow of his shield, and took 
And bore him to the naked hall of Doorm, 
(His gentle charger following him unled) 
And cast him and the bier in which he lay 
Down on an oaken settle in the hall. 
And then departed, hot in haste to join 
Their luckier mates, but growling as before. 
And cursing their lost time, and the dead man, 
And their own Earl, and their own souls, and her. 
They might as well h.ive blest her: she was deaf 
To blessing or to cursing save from one. 

So for long hours sat Enid by her lord. 
There in the naked hall, propping his head. 
And chafing his pale hands, and calling to him. 
And at the last he waken'd from his swoon. 
And found his own dear bride propping his head. 
And chaling his faint hands, and calling to him ; 
And felt the warm tears falling on his face ; 
And said to his own heart, "She weeps for me;" 
And yet lay still, and feign'd himself as dead. 
That he might prove her to the uttermost. 
And say to his owu heart, "She weeps for me." 



But in the falling afternoon return'd 
The huge Earl Doorm with plunder to the hall. 
His lusty spearmen follow'd him with noise : 
Each hurling down a heap of things that rang 
Against the pavement, cast his lance aside. 
And doff'd his helm: and then there flutter'd in. 
Half-bold, half-frighted, with dilated eyes, 
A tribe of women, dress'd in many hues. 
And mingled with the spearmen : and Earl Doorm 
Struck with a knife's haft hard against the board. 
And call'd for flesh and wine to feed his spears. 
And men brought in whole hogs and quarter beeves. 
And all the hall was dim with steam of flesh : 
And none spake word, but all sat down at once. 
And ate with tumult in the naked hall. 
Feeding like horses when you hear them feed ; 
Till Enid shrank far back into herself. 
To shun the wild ways of the lawless tribe. 
But when Earl Doorm had eaten all he would. 
He roll'd his eyes about the hall, and found 
A damsel drooping in a corner of it. 
Then he remember'd her, and how she wept ; 
And out of her there came a power upon him : 
Abd rising on the sudden he said, "Eat! 
I never yet beheld a thing so pale. 
God's curse, it makes me mad to see you weep. 
Eat ! Look yourself. Good luck had your good man, 
For were I dead who is it would weep for me? 
Sweet lady, never since I first drew breath. 
Have I beheld a lily like yourself. 
And so there lived some color in your cheek, 
There is not one among my gentlewomen 
Were fit to wear your slipper for a glove. 
But listen to me, and by me be ruled. 
And I will do the thing I have not done. 
For you shall share my earldom with me, girl, 
And we will live like two birds in one nest, 
And I will fetch you forage froja all fields. 
For I compel all creatures to my will." 

He spoke: the brawny spearman let his cheek 
Bulge with the unswallow'd piece, and turning, 

stared ; 
While some, whose souls the old serpent long had 

drawn 
Down, as the worm draws in the wither'd leaf 
And makes it earth, hiss'd each at other's ear 
What shall not be recorded— women they, 
Women, or what had been those gracious things. 
But now desired the humbling of their best. 
Yea, would have helped him to it; and all at once 
They hated her, who took no thought of them. 
But answer'd in low voice, her meek head yet 
Drooping, " I pray you of your courtesy, 
He being as he is, to let me be." 

She spake so low he hardly heard her speak, 
But like a mighty patron, satisfied 
With what himself had doue so graciously, 
Assumed that she had thanked him, adding, "Yea, 
Eat and be glad, for I account you mine." 

She answer'd meekly, "How should I be glad 
Henceforth in all the world at anything. 
Until my lord arise and look upon me?" 

Here the huge Earl cried out upon her talk. 
As all but empty heart and weariness 
And sickly nothing ; suddenly seized on her. 
And bare her by main violence to the board, 
And thrust the dish before her, crying, "Eat." 

"No, no," said Enid, vest, "I will not eat, 
Till yonder man upon the bier arise, 
And eat with me." "Drink, then," he answer'd. 

"Here!" 
(And fill'd a horn with wine and held it to her)i, 
"Lo! I, myself, when flush'd with fight, or hot, 



ENID. 



159 



God's curse, with anger — often I myself, 
Before I well have drunken, scarce can eat: 
Drink therefore, and the wine will change your will." 

"Not so," she cried, "by Heaven, I will not drink, 
Till my dear lord arise and bid me do it. 
And drink with me ; and if he' rise no more, 
I will not look at wine until I die." 

At this he turn'd all red and paced his hall, 
Now guaw'd his uuder, now his upper lip, 
And coming up close to her, said at last : 
" Girl, for I see you scorn my courtesies, 
Take warning: yonder man is surely dead; 
And I compel all creatures to my will. 
Not eat nor drink? And wherefore wail for yne. 
Who put your beauty to this flout and scorn 
By dressing it in rags? Amazed am I, 
Beholding how you butt against ray wish. 
That I forbear yon thus: cross me no more. 
At least put off to please me this poor gown, 
This silken rag, this beggar-woman's weed: 
I love that beauty should go beautifully : 
For see you not my gentlewomen here, 
How gay, how suited to the house of one. 
Who loves that beauty should go beautifully ! 
Rise therefore ; robe yourself in this : obey." 

He spoke, and one among his gentlewomen 
Display'd a splendid silk of foreign loom. 
Where like a shoaling sea the lovely blue 
Play'd into green, and thicker dowu the front 
With jewels than the sward with drops of dew, 
When all night long a cloud clings to the hill, 
And with the dawn ascending lets the day 
Strike where it clung: so thickly shone the gems. 

But Enid answer'd, harder to be moyed 
Than hardest tyrants in their day of power, 
With life-long injuries burning unaveuged, 
And now their hour has come ; and Enid said : 

"In this poor gown my dear lord found me first, 
And loved me serving in my father's hall : 
In this poor gown I rode with him to court. 
And there the Queen .irray'd me like the sun: 
In this poor gown he bade me clothe myself, 
When now we rode upon this fatal quest 
Of honor, where no honor can be gain'd : 
And this poor gown I will not cast aside 
Until himself arise a living man. 
And bid me cast it. I have griefs enough: 
Pray you be gentle, pray you let me be: 
I never loved, can never love but him: 
Yea, God, I pray you of your gentleness. 
He being as he is, to let me be." 

Then strode the brute Earl up and down his hall. 
And took his russet beard between his teeth ; 
Last, coming up quite close, and in his mood 
Crying, " I count it of no more avail. 
Dame, to be gentle than ungentle with you; 
Take my salute," unknightly with flat hand, 
However lightly, smote her on the cheek. 
Then Enid, in her utter helplessness. 
And since she thought, " he had not dared to do it. 
Except he surely knew my lord was dead," 
Sent forth a sudden sharp and bitter cry. 
As of a wild thing taken in the trap, 
Which sees the trapper coming thro' the wood. 

This heard Geraint, and grasping at his sword, 
(It lay beside him in the hollow shield,) 
Made but a single bound, and with a sweep of it 
Shore thro' the swarthy neck, and like a ball 
The rnsset-bearded head rolFd on the floor. 
So died Earl Doorm by him he counted dead. 
And all the men and women in the hall 



Rose when they saw the dead man rise, and fled 
Yelling as from a spectre, and the two 
Were left alone together, and he said : 

" Enid, I have used you worse than that dead man ; 
Done you more wrong: we both have undergone 
That trouble which has left me thrice your own : 
Henceforward I will rather die than doubt. 
And here I lay this penance on myself. 
Not, tho' mine own ears heard you yestermoru — 
You thought me sleeping, but I heard you say, 
I heard you say, that you were no true wife : 
I swear I will not ask your meaning in it; 
I do believe yourself against yourself. 
And will henceforward rather die than doubt." 

And Enid could not say one tender word. 
She felt so blunt and stupid at the heart : 
She only pray'd him, "Ply, they will return 
And slay you; fly, your charger is without. 
My palfrey lost." " Then, Enid, shall you ride 
Behind me." "Yea," said Enid, "let us go." 
And moving out they fouud the stately horse, 
Who now no more a vassal to the thief. 
But free to stretch his limbs in lawful flght, 
Neigh'd with all gladness as they came, and stoop'd 
With a low whinny toward the pair : and she 
Kiss'd the white star upon his noble front. 
Glad also ; then Geraint upon the horse 
Mounted, and reach'd a hand, and on his foot 
She set her own and climb'd ; he turn'd his face 
And kiss'd her climbing, and she cast her arms 
About him, and at once they rode away. 

And never yet, since high in Paradise 
O'er the four rivers the flrst roses blew, 
Came purer pleasure unto mortal kind. 
Than lived thro' her who in that perilous hour 
Put hand to hand beneath her husband's heart. 
And felt him hers again : she did not weep. 
But o'er her meek eyes came a happy mist 
Like that which kept the heart of Eden green 
Before the useful trouble of the rain : 
Yet not so misty were her meek blue eyes 
As not to see before them on the path. 
Right in the gateway of the bandit bold, 
A knight of Arthur's court, who laid his lance 
In rest, and made as if to fall upon him. 
Then, fearing for his hurt and loss of blood. 
She, with her mind all full of what had chanced, 
Shriek'd to the stranger, "Slay not a dead man !" 
" The voice of Enid," said the knight : but she, 
Beholding it was Edyru son of Nudd, 
Was moved so much the more, and shriek'd again, 
"O cousin, slay not him who gave you life." 
And Edyrn moving frankly forward spake: 
"My lord Geraint, I greet you with all love; 
I took you for a bandit knight of Doorm ; 
And fear not, Enid, I should fall upon him, 
Who love you, Prince, with something of the love 
Wherewith we love the Heaven that chastens us. 
For once, when I was up so high in pride 
That I was half way dowu the slope to Hell, 
By overthrowing me you threw me higher. 
Now, made a knight of Arthur's Table Round, 
And since I knew this Earl, when I myself 
Was half a bandit in my lawless hour, 
I come the mouthpiece of our King to Doorm 
(The King is close behind me) bidding him 
Disband himself, and scatter all his powers, 
Submit, and hear the judgment of the King." 

"He hears the judgment of the King of Kings," 
Cried the wan Prince: " and lo the powers of Doorm 
Are scatter'd," and he pointed to the field 
Where, huddled here and there on mound and knoll, 
Were men and women staring and aghast, 
While some yet fled ; and then he plainlier told 



160 



ENID. 




" He turned his face, 
And kiss'd her climbing, and she cast her arms 
About him, and at once they rode away." 



How the huge Earl lay slain within his hall. 
But when the knight besought him, "Follow me, 
Prince, to the camp, and in the King's own ear 
Speak what has chanced ; you surely have endured 
Strange chances here alone ;" that other flush'd, 
And hung his head, and halted in reply. 
Fearing the mild face of the blameless King, 
And after madness acted question ask'd : 
Till Edyrn crying, " If you will not go 
To Arthur, then will Arthur come to you," 
"Enough," he said, "I follow," and they went. 
But Enid in their going had two fears. 
One from the bandit scatter'd in the field. 
And one from Edyrn. Every now and then, 
When Edyrn rein'd his charger at her side. 
She shrank a little. In a hollow land. 
From which old fires have broken, men may fear 
Fresh fire and ruin. He, perceiving, said : 

"Fair and dear cousin, you that most had cause 
To fear me, fear no longer, I am changed. 
Yourself were first the blameless cause to make 



My nature's prideful sparkle in the blood 

Break into furious flame ; being repulsed 

By Yniol and yourself, I schemed and wrought 

Until I overturn'd him; then set up 

(With one main purpose ever at my heart) 

My haughty jousts, and took a paramour; 

Did her mock-honor as the fairest fair. 

And, toppling over all antagonism. 

So wax'd in pride, that I believed myself 

Unconquerable, for I was welluigh mad: 

And, but for my main purpose in these jousts, 

I should have slain your father, seized yourself. 

I lived in hope that some time you would come 

To these my lists with him whom best you loved; 

And there, poor cousin, with your meek blue eyes. 

The truest eyes that ever answer'd heaven, 

Behold me overturn and trample on him. 

Then, had you cried, or knelt, or pray'd to me, 

I should not less have killed him. And you came, — 

But once you came, — and with your own true eyes 

Beheld the man you loved (I speak as one 

Speaks of a service done him) overthrow 



VIVIEN. 



161 



My proud self, and my purpose three years old, 

And set his foot upon me, and give me life. 

There was I broken down ; there was I saved : 

Tho' thence I rode all-shamed, hating the life 

He gave me, meaning to be rid of it. 

And all the penance the Queeu laid upon me 

Was but to rest awhile within her court ; 

Where first as sullen as a beast new-caged, 

And waiting to be treated like a wolf. 

Because I knew my deeds were known, I found, 

lustead of scornful pity or pure scorn, 

Such fine reserve and noble reticence. 

Manners so kind, yet stately, such a grace 

Of tenderest courtesy, that I began 

To glance behind me at my former life, 

And find that it had been the wolf's indeed : 

And oft I talk'd with Dubric, the high saint. 

Who, with mild heat of holy oratory, 

Subdued me somewhat to that gentleness. 

Which, when it weds with manhood, makes a man. 

And_ you were often there about the Queen, 

But saw me not, or marked not if you saw ; 

Nor dirt I care or dare to speak with you. 

But kept myself aloof till I was changed; 

And fear not, cousin; I am changed indeed." 

He spoke, and Enid easily believed. 
Like simple noble natures, credulous 
Of what they long for, good in friend or foe. 
There most in those who most have done them ill. 
And when they reach'd the camp the king himself 
Advanced to greet them, and beholding her 
Tho' pale, yet happy, ask'd her not a word, 
But went apart with Edyrn, whom he held 
In converse for a little, and returu'd. 
And, gravely smiling, lifted her from horse. 
And kiss'd her with all pureness, brother-like. 
And show'd an empty tent allotted her. 
And glancing for a minute, till he saw her 
Pass into it, turn'd to the Prince, and said : 

"Prince, when of late you pray'd me for my leave 
To move to your own land, and there defend 
Your marches, I was prick'd with some reproof. 
As one that let foul wrong stagnate and be, 
By having look'd too much thro' alien eyes. 
And wrought too iMig with delegated hands. 
Not used mine ovni : but now behold me come 
To cleanse this common sewer of all my realm. 
With Edyi-n and with others: have you look'd 
At Edyrn f have you seen how nobly changed ? 
This work of his is great and wonderful. 
His very face with change of heart is changed. 
The world will not believe a man repents: 
And this wise world of ours is mainly right. 
Full seldom does a man repent, or use 
Both grace and will to pick the vicious quitch 
Of blood and custom wholly out of him. 
And make all clean, and plant himself afresh. 
Edyrn has done it, weeding all his heart 
As I will weed this land before I go. 
I, therefore, made him of our Table Kound, 
Not rashly, but have proved him every way 
One of our noblest, our most valorous, 
Sanest and most obedient : and indeed 
This work of Edym wrought upon himself 
After a life of violence, seems to me 
A thousand-fold more great and wonderful 
Than if some knight of mine, risking his life, 
My subject with my subjects under him. 
Should make an onslaught single on a realm 
Of robbers, tho' he slew them" one by one, 
And were himself nigh wounded to the death." 

So spake the King ; low bow'd the Prince, and felt 
His work was neither great nor wonderful, 
And past to Enid's tent; and thither came 
The King's own leech to look into his hurt; 
11 



And Enid tended on him there ; and there 
Her constant motion round him, and the breath 
Of her sweet tendance hovering over him, 
Pill'd all the genial courses of his blood 
With deeper and with ever deeper love, 
As the south-west that blowing Bala lake 
Fills all the sacred Dee. So past the days. 

But while Geraint lay. healing of his hurt. 
The blameless King went forth and cast his eyes 
On whom his father Uther left in charge 
Long since, to guard the justice of the King: 
He look'd and found them wanting ; and as now 
Men weed the white horse on the Berkshire hills 
To keep him bright and clean as heretofore. 
He rooted out the slothful officer 
Or guilty, which for bribe had wink'd at wrong, 
And in their chairs set up a stronger race 
With hearts and hands, and sent a thousand men 
To till the wastes, and moving everywhere 
Clear'd the dark places and let in the law, 
And broke the bandit holds and cleansed the land. 

Then, when Geraint was whole again, they past 
With Arthur to Caerleon upon Usk. 
There the great Queeu once more embraced her friend, 
And clothed her in apparel like the day. 
And tho' Geraint could never take again 
That comfort from their converse which he took 
Before the Queen's fair name was breathed upon, 
He rested well content that all was well. 
Thence after tarrying for a space they rode, 
And fifty knights rode with them to the shores 
Of Severn, and they past to their own land. 
And there he kept the justice of the King 
So vigorously yet mildly, that all hearts 
Applauded, and the spiteful whisper died: 
And being ever foremost in the chase, 
And victor at the tilt and tournament, 
They call'd him the great Prince and man of men. 
But Enid, whom her ladies loved to call 
Enid the Fair, a grateful people named 
Enid the Good; and in their halls arose 
The cry of children, Enids and Geraints 
Of times to be ; nor did he doubt her more 
But rested in her fealty, till he crown'd 
A happy life with a fair death, and fell 
Against the heathen of the Northern Sea 
In battle, fighting for the blameless King. 



VIVIEN. 

A STORM was coming, but the winds were still. 
And in the wild jvoods of Broceliande, 
Before an oak,' go^Bollow huge and old 
It look'd a tower of rrtWcPmasonwork, 
At Merlin's feet the wily Vivien lay. 

The wily Vivien stole from Arthur's court: 
She hated all the knights, and heard in thought 
Their lavish comment when her name was named. 
For once, when Arthur walking all alone, 
Vext at a rumor rife about the Queen, 
Had met her, Vivien, being greeted fair. 
Would fain have wrought upon his cloudy mood 
With reverent eyes mock-loyal, shaken voice, 
And flutter'd adoration, and at last 
With dark sweet hints of some who prized him more 
Than who should prize him most ; at which the King 
Had gazed upon her blankly and gone by: 
But one had watch'd, and had not held his peace : 
It made the laughter of an afternoon 
That Vivien should attempt the blameless King. 
And after that, she set herself to gain 
Him, the most famous man of all those times, 



162 



VIVIEN. 



Merlin, who kuew the range of all their arts, 
Had bnilt the King his havens, ships, and halls, 
Was also Bard, and knew the starry heavens; 
The people called him Wizard; whom at first 
She play'd about with slight and sprightly talk, 
And vivid smiles, and faiutly-venom'd points 
Of slander, glancing here and grazing there ; 
And yielding to his kindlier moods, the Seer 
Would watch her at her petulance, and play, 
Ev'u when they seem'd unlovable, and laugh 
As those that watch a kitten; thus he grew 
Tolerant of what he half disdaiu'd, and she. 
Perceiving that she was but half disdaiu'd. 
Began to break her sports with graver fits. 
Turn red or pale, would often when they met 
Sigh fully, or all-silent gaze upon him 
With such a fixt devotion, that the old man, 
Tho' doubtful, felt the flattery, and at times 
Would flatter his own wish in age for love, 
Aud half believe her true: for thus at times 
He waver'd ; but that other clung to him, 
Fixt in her will, aud so the seasons went. 
Then fell upon him a great melancholy; 
Aud leaving Arthur's court he gaiu'd the beach ; 
There found a little boat, and stept into it; 
And Vivien follow'd, but he mark'd her not. 
She took the helm and he the sail ; the boat 
Drave with a sudden wind across the deeps, 
Aud touching Breton sauds they disembark'd. 
And then she follow'd Merlin all the way, 
Ev'n to the wild woods of Broceliande. 
For Merlin once had told her of a charm. 
The which if any wrought on any one 
With woven paces and with waving arms, 
The man so wrought on ever seem'd to lie 
Closed in the four walls of a hollow tower. 
From which was no escape forevermore ; 
And none could find that man forevermore, 
Nor could he see but him who wrought the charm 
Coming and going, and he lay as dead 
And lost to life and use aud name aud fame. 
And. Vivien ever sought to work the charm 
Upon the great Enchanter of the Time, 
As fancying that her glory would be great 
According to his greatness whom she quench'd. 

There lay she all her length and kiss'd his feet. 
As if in deepest reverence and in love. 
A twist of gold was round her hair ; a robe 
Of samite without price, that more exprest 
Than hid her, clung about her lissome limbs, 
III color like the satin-shining palm 
On sallows in the windy gleams of March : 
And while she kiss'd them, crying, "Trample me, 
Dear feet, that I have follow'd thro' the world, 
And I will pay yon worship ; tread me down 
Aud I will kiss you for it;" he was mute: 
So dark a forethought roll'd about his brain. 
As on a dull day in au Ocean cave' 
The blind w-ave feeling round his long sea-hall 
In sileuce: wherefore, when she lifted up 
A face of sad appeal, and spake and said, 
" Merlin, do you love me ?" and again, 
" O Merlin, do you love me ?" and once more, 
"Great Master, do you love me?" he was mute. 
And lissome Vivien, holding by his heel. 
Writhed toward him, slided up his knee and sat, 
Behind his ankle twined her hollow feet 
Together, curved an arm about his neck, 
Clung like a snake ; and letting her left hand 
Droop from his mighty shoulder as a leaf, 
Made with her right a comb of pearl to part 
The lists of such a beard as youth gone oi;t 
Had left in ashes : then he spoke and said. 
Not looking at her, "Who are wise in love 
Love most, say least," and Vivien auswer'd quick, 
" I saw the little elf-god eyeless once 
In Arthur's arras hall at Camelot: 



But neither eyes nor tongue, — O stupid child 1 
Yet you are wise \vho say it; let me think 
Silence is wisdom :. I am silent then 
-And ask no kiss;'* then adding all at once, , 

"And lo, I clothe myself with wisdom," drew 
The vast aud shaggy mautle of his beard 
Across her neck and bosom to her knee. 
And call'd herself a gilded summer fly 
Caught in a great old tyrant spider's web, 
Who meant to eat her up in that wild wood 
Without one word. So Vivien call'd herself, 
But rather seem'd a lovely baleful star 
Veil'd in gray vapor; till he sadly smiled: 
"To what request for what strange boon," he said, 
"Are these your pretty tricks and fooleries, 

Vivien, the preamble ? yet my thanks, 
For these have broken up m}' melancholy." 

And Vivien answer'd smiling saucily, 

"What, O my Master, have you found your voice? 

1 bid the stranger welcome. Thanks at last ! 
But yesterday you never open'd lip. 
Except indeed to drink : no cup had we : 

In mine own lady palms I cull'd the spring 
That gather'd trickling dropwise from the cleft, 
And made a pretty cup of both my hands 
And off"er'd you it kneeling: then you drank 
And knew no more, nor gave me one poor word ; 
O no more thanks than might a goat have given 
With no more sign of revereuce than a beard. 
And when we halted at that other well. 
And I was faint to swooning, and you lay 
Foot-gilt with all the blossom-dust of those 
Deep meadows we had traversed, did you know 
That Vivien bathed your feet before her own ? 
And yet no thanks : and all thro' this wild wood 
And all this morning when I fondled you : 
Boon, yes, there was a boon, one not so strange— 
How had I wrong'd you? surely you are wise, 
But such a silence is more wise than kind." 

Aud Merlin lock'd his hand in hers and said: 
" O did you never lie upon the shore. 
And watch the curl'd white of the coming wave 
Glass'd in the slippery sand before it breaks ? 
Ev'n such a wave, but not so pleasurable. 
Dark in the glass of some presageful mood, 
Had I for three days seen, read^ to fall. 
And then I rose and fled from Arthur's court 
To break the mood. You follow'd me uuask'd ; 
And when I look'd, and saw you following still, 
My mind involved yourself the nearest thing 
lu that mind-mist; for shall I tell you truth? 
Vou seem'd that wave about to break upon me 
And sweep me from my hold upon the world. 
My use and name and fame. Your pardon, child. 
Your pretty sports have brighten'd all again. 
And ask your boon, for boon I owe you thrice, 
Ouce for wrong done you by confusion, next 
For thanks it seems till now neglected, last 
For these your dainty gambols: wherefore ask: 
And take this boon so strange and not so strange." 

And Vivien auswer'd, smiling mournfully: 
" O not so strange as my long asking it. 
Nor yet so strange as you yourself are strange, 
Nor half so strange as that dark mood of yours. 
I ever fear'd you were not wholly mine; 
And see, yourself have own'd you did me wroii;L-. 
The people call you prophet: let it be: 
But not of those that can expound themselves. 
Take Vivien for expounder; she will call 
That three-days-long presageful gloom of youns 
No presage, but the same mistrustful mood 
That makes you seem less noble than yourself, 
Whenever I have ask'd this very boon, 
Now ask'd again ; for see you not, dear love, 
That such a mood as that, which lately gloom'd 



VIVIEN. 



168 



Your faucy when you saw rae followiog you, 

Must make me fear still more you are not mine, 

Must make me yearn still more to prove you mine. 

And make me wish still more to learn this charm 

Of woven paces and of waving hands, 

As proof of trust. O Merlin, teach it me. 

The charm so taught will charm us both to rest. 

For, grant me some slight power upon your fate, 

I, feeling that you felt me worthy trust. 

Should rest and let you rest, knowing you mine, 

And therefore be as great as you are named. 

Not muffled round with selfish reticence. 

How hard you look and how denyingly ! 

O, if you think this wickedness in me, 

That I should prove it ou you unawares. 

To make you lose your use and name and fame, 

That makes me most indignant ; then our bond 

Had best be loosed forever: but think or not. 

By Heaven that hears I tell you the clean truth, 

As clean as blood of babes, as white as milk: 

Merlin, may this earth, if ever I, ■ 

If these unwitty wandering wits of mine, 
Ev'u in the jumbled rubbish of a dream. 
Have tript ou such conjectural treachery — 
May this hard earth cleave to the Nadir hell 
Down, down, and close again, and nip me tlat, 
If I be such a traitress. Yield my boon, 
Till which I scarce can yield you all I am : 
And grant my re-reiterated wish, 
The great proof of your love : because I think, 
However wise, you hardly know me yet." 

And Merlin loosed his hand from hers and said : 
"I never was less wise, however wise, 
Too curious Vivien, tho' you talk of trust, 
Than when I told you first of such a charm. 
Yea, if you talk of trust I tell you this, 
Too much I trusted, when I told you that. 
And stirr'd this vice in you which ruin'd man 
Thro' woman the first hour; for howsoe'er 
In children a great curiousness be well, 
Who have to leara themselves and all the world, 
In you, that are no child, for still I find 
Your face Is practised, when I spell the lines, 

1 call it,— well, I will not call it vice : 

But since you name yourself the summer fly, 
I well could wish a cobweb for the gnat. 
That settles, beaten back, and beaten back 
Settles, till one could yield for weariness : 
But since I will not yield to give you power 
Upon my life and use and ^ame and fame. 
Why will you never ask some other boon ? 
Y'ea, by God's rood, I trusted you too much." 

And Vivien, like the tenderest-hearted maid 
That ever bided tryst at village stile. 
Made answer, either eyelid wet with tears. 
" Nay, master, be not wrathful with your maid ; 
Caress her: let her feel herself forgiven 
Who feels no heart to ask another boon. 
I think you hardly know the tender rhyme 
Of 'trust me not at all or all in all.' 
I heard the great Sir Lancelot sing it once, 
And it shall answer for me. Listen to it. 

'In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours, 
Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers: 
Unfaith in angbt is want of faith in all. 

*It is the little rift within the lute, 
That by and by will make the music mute, ■;. 

And ever widening slowly silence all. 

'The little rift within the lover's lute. 
Or little pitted speck in garner'd fruit, ,'' 

That rotting inward slowly moulders all. ^ 



'It is not worth the keeping: let it go: 
But shall it? answer, darling, answer, no. 
And trust me not at all or all in all.' 

master, do you love my tender rhyme ?" 

And Merlin look'd and half believed her true, 
So tender was her voice, so fair her face, 
So sweetly gleam'd her eyes behind her tears 
Like sunlight on a plain behind a shower: 
And yet he answer'd half indignantly: 

"Far other was the song that once I heard 
By this huge oak, sung nearly where we sit ■ 
For here we met, some ten or twelve of us. 
To chase a creature that was current then 
In these wild woods, the hart with golden horus. 
It was the time when first the question rose 
About the founding of a Table Round, 
That was to be, for love of God and men 
And noble deeds, the flower of all the world. 
And each incited each to noble deeds. 
And while we waited, one, the youngest of n?, 
We could not keep him silent, out he flash'd, 
And into such a song, such fire for fame, 
Such trumpet-blowings in it, coming down 
To such a stern and iron-clashing close. 
That when he stopt we long'd to hurl together, 
And should have done it; but the beauteous beast 
Scared by the noise upstarted at our feet. 
And like a silver shadow slipt away 
Thro' the dim land ; and all day long we rode 
Thro' the dim land against the rushing wind, 
That glorious roundel echoing in our ears. 
And chased the flashes of his golden horns 
Until they vanish'd by the fairy Avell 
That laughs at iron — as our warriors did — 
Where children cast their pins and nails, and cry, 
"Laugh little well," but touch it with a sword. 
It buzzes wildly round the point; and there 
We lost him: such a noble song was that. 
But, Vivien, when you sang me that sweet rhyme, 

1 felt as tho' you knew this cursed charm. 
Were proving it on me, and that I lay 

And felt them slowly ebbing, name and fame." 

And Vivien answer'd, smiling mournfully; 
" O mine have ebb'd away forevei-more. 
And all thro' following you to this wild wood, 
Because I saw you sad, to comfort you. 
Lo now, what hearts have men ! they never mount 
As high as woman in her selfless mood. 
And touching fame, howe'er you scorn my song 
Take one verse more— the la^ speaks it— this : 

'My name, once mine, now thine, is closelier mine. 
For fanio, could fame be miue, that fame were thine. 
And shame, could shame be thine, that shame weie 

mine. 
So trust me not at all or all in all.' 

" Says she not well ? and there is more— this rhyme 
Is like the fair pearl necklace of the Queen, 
That burst in dancing, and the pearls were spilt ; 
Some lost, some stolen, some as relics kept. 
But nevermore the same two sister pearls 
Ran down the silken thread to kiss each other 
On her white neck — so is it with this rhyme : 
It lives dispersedly in many hands. 
And every minstrel sings it differently ; 
Yet is there one true line, the pearl of pearls; 
'Man dreams of Fame while woman wakes to'love.' 
True : Love, tho' Love were of the grossest, carves 
A portion from the solid present, eats 
And uses, careless of the rest; but Fame, 
The Fame that follows death is nothing to us ; 
And what is Fame in life but half-disfame) 
And counterehanged with darkness ? you yourself 



1(U 



VIVIEN. 



Know well that Envy calls you Devil's son, 
And since you seem the Master of all Art, 
They fain vrould make you Master of all Vice." 

And Merlin locked his hand in hers and said, 
"I once was looking for a magic weed. 
And found a fair young squire who sat alone. 
Had carved himself a knightly shield of wood, 
And then was painting on it fancied arms, 
Azure, an Eagle rising, or, the Sun 
In dexter chief; the scroll 'I follow fame.' 
And speaking not, but leaning over him, 
I took his brush and blotted out the bird, 
And made a Gardener putting in a grafl, 
With this for motto, ' Eather use than fame.' 
You should have seen him blush : but afterwards 
He made a stalwart knight. O Vivien, 
For you, methinks you think you love me well; 
For me, I love you somewhat : rest : and Love 
Should have some rest and pleasure in himseii'. 
Not ever be too curious for a boon. 
Too prurient for a proof against the grain 
Of him you say you love: but Fame with men. 
Being but ampler means to serve mankind. 
Should have small rest or pleasure in herself. 
But work as vassal to the larger love. 
That dwarfs the petty love of one to one. 
Use gave me Fame at first, and Fame again 
Increasing gave me use. Lo, there my boon 1 
What other 1 for men sought to prove me vile. 
Because I wish'd to give thenj greater minds; 
And then did Envy call me Devil's son ; 
The sick weak beast seeking to help herself 
By striking at her better, miss'd, and brought 
Her own claw back, and wounded her own heart. 
Sweet were the days when I was all unknown. 
But when my name was lifted up, the storm 
Broke on the mountain and I cared not for it. 
Right well know I that Fame is half-disfame, 
Yet needs must work my work. That other fame. 
To one at least, who hath not children, vague, 
The cackle of the unborn about the grave, 
I cared not for it: a single misty star. 
Which is the second in a line of stars 
That seem a sword beneath a belt of tbree, 
I never gazed upon it but I dreamt 
Of some vast charm concluded in that star 
To make fame nothing. Wherefore, if I fear. 
Giving you power upon me thro' this charm, 
That you might play me falsely, having power. 
However well you think yon love me now 
(As sons of kings loving in pupilage 
Have turn'd to tyrants when they came to power) 
1 rather dread the lo^of use than fame; 
If you — and not so much from wickedness, 
As some wild turn of anger, or a mood 
Of overstrain'd affection, it may be. 
To keep me all to your own self, or else 
A sudden spurt of woman's jealousy. 
Should try this charm on whom you say you love." 

And Vivien answer'd, smiling as in wrath : 
" Have I not sworn ? I am not trusted. Good ! 
Well, hide it, hide it; I shall And it out; 
And being found take heed of Vivien. 
A woman and not trusted, doubtless I 
Might feel some sudden turn of anger born 
Of your misfaith ; and your fine epithet 
Is accurate too, for this full love of mine 
Without the full heart back may merit well 
Your term of overstrain'd. So used as I, 
My daily wonder is, I love at all. 
And as to woman's jealousy, O why not ? 

to what end, except a jealous one. 
And one to make me jealous if I love, 
Was this fair charm invented by yourself? 

1 well believe that all about this world 
You cage a buxom captive here and there. 



Closed in the four walls of a hollow tower 
From which is no escape forevermore." 

Then the great Master merrily answer'd her; 
"Full many a love in loving youth was mine, 
I needed then no charm to keep them mine 
But youth and love ; and that full heart of yours 
Whereof you prattle, may now assure you mine ; 
So live uncharm'd. For those who wrought it tirsi. 
The wrist is parted from the hand that waved, 
The feet unmortised from their ankle-bones 
Who paced it, ages back: but will you hear 
The legend as in guerdon for your rhyme ? 

" There lived a King in the most Eastern East, 
Less old than I, yet older, for my blood 
Hath earnest in it of far springs to be. 
A tawny pirate anchor'd in his port. 
Whose bark had plunder'd twenty nameless isles ; 
And passing one, at the high peep of dawn. 
He saw two cities in a thousand boats 
All fighting for a woman on the sea. 
And pushing his black craft among them all, 
He lightly scatter'd theirs and brought her oft". 
With loss of half his people arrow-slain ; 
A maid so smooth, so white, so wonderfnl. 
They said a light came from her when she moved • 
And since the pirate would not yield her up, 
The King impaled him for his piracy; 
Then made her Queen : but those isle-nurtur'd eyes 
Waged such unwilling tho' successful war 
On all the youth, they sicken'd ; councils thinn'd. 
And armies waned, for magnet-like she drew 
The rustiest iron of old fighters' hearts ; 
And beasts themselves would worship; camels knelt 
Unbidden, and the brutes of mountain back 
That carried kings in castles, bow'd black knees 
Of homage, ringing with their serpent hands. 
To make her smile, her golden ankle-bells. 
What wonder, being jealous, that he sent 
His horns of proclamation out thro' all 
The hundred uuder-kingdoms that he sway'd 
To find a wizard who might teach the King 
Some charm, which being wrought upon the Queen 
Might keep her all his own : to such a one 
He promised more than ever king has given, 
A league of mountain full of golden mines, 
A province with a hundred miles of coast, 
A palace and a princess, all for him: 
But on all those who tried and fail'd, the King 
Pronounced a dismal sentence, meaning by it 
To keep the list low and pretenders back, 
Or like a king, not to be trifled with— 
Their heads should moulder on the city gates. 
And many tried and fail'd, because the charm 
Of nature in her overbore their own : 
And many a wizard brow bleach'd on the walls : 
And many weeks a troop of carrion crows 
Hung like a cloud above the gateway towers.'' 

And Vivien, breaking in upon him, said : 
"I sit and gather honey; yet, methinks. 
Your tongue has tript a little : ask yourself. 
The lady never made unwilling war 
With those flue eyes : she had her pleasure in it. 
And made her good man jealous with good cause. 
And lived there neither dame nor damsel then 
Wroth at a lover's loss? were all as tame, 
I mean, as noble, as their Queen was fair ? 
Not one to flirt a venom at her eyes. 
Or pinch a murderous dust into her drink, 
Or make her paler with a poison'd rose? 
Well, those were not our days ; but did they find 
A wizard ? Tell me, was he like to thee ?" 

She ceased, and made her lithe arm round nis necl: 
Tighten, and then drew back, and let her eyes 
Speak for her, glowing on him, like a bride's 
On her new lord, her own, the first of men. 



VIVIEN. 



16.- 




'Ancl piiBhing his black craft among them all 
He lightly acatter'd theirs and brought her off, 
"With loss of half his people arrow-slain." 



He answer'd laughing, "Nay, not like to me. 
At last they found — his foragers for charms — 
A little glassy-headed hairless man. 
Who lived alone in a great wild on grass ; 
Read but one book, and ever reading grew 
So grated down and filed away with thouc;ht. 
So lean his eyes were monstrous ; while the skin 
Clung but to crate and basket, ribs and spine. 
And since he kept his mind on one sole aim, 
Nor ever touch'd fierce wine, nor tasted flesh. 
Nor own'd a sensual wish, to him the wall 
That sunders ghosts and shadow-casting men 
Became a crystal, and he saw them thro' it. 
And heard their voices talk behind the wall, 
And learnt their elemental secrets, powers 
And forces ; often o'er the sun's bright eye 
Drew the vast eyelid of an inky cloud. 
And lash'd it at the base with slanting storm; 
Or in the noon of mist and driving rain. 
When the lake whiteu'd and the pine-wood roar'd, 
And the cairn'd mountain was a shadow, suuu'd 



The world to peace again: here was the man. 
And so by force they dragg'd him to the King. 
And then he taught the King to charm the Queen 
In such wise, that no man could see her more, 
Nor saw she save the King, who wrought the charm, 
Coming and going, and she lay as dead. 
And lost all use of life: but when the King 
Made proffer of the league of golden mines, 
The province with a hundred miles of coast. 
The palace and the princess, that old man 
Went back to his old wild, and lived on grass, 
And vanish'd, and his book came down to me." 

And Vivien answer'd, smiling saucily: 
"You have the book: the charm is written in it: 
Good: take my counsel: let me know it at once: 
For keep it like a puzzle chest in chest. 
With each chest lock'd and padlock'd thirty-fold. 
And whelm all this beneath as vast a monnd 
As after .furious battle tnrfs the slain 
On some wild down above the windy deep. 



1(56 



VIVIEN. 



I yet should strike upou a sudileu means 
To dig, pick, opeD, find and read tlie charm : 
Then, if I tried it, who should blame me then ?" 

And smiling as a Master smiles at one 
That is not of his school, nor any school 
But that where blind and naked Ignorance 
Delivers brawling judgments, unashamed. 
On all things all day long, he answered her : 

" You read the book, my pretty Vivien ! 
O ay, it is but twenty pages long, 
But every page having au ample marge. 
An every marge enclosing in the midst 
A square of text that looks a little blot. 
The text no larger than the limbs of fleas ; 
And every square of text au awful charm, 
Writ in a language that has long gone by. 
So long, that mountains have arisen since 
With cities on their flanks— ^oi« read the book ! 
And every margin scribbled, crost and cramm'd 
With comment, densest condensation, hard 
To mind and eye ; but the long sleepless nights 
Of my long life have made it easy to me. 
And none can read the text, not even I ; 
And none can read the comment but myself; 
And in the comment did I find the charm. 
O, the results are simple; a mere child 
Might use it to the harm of any one. 
And never could undo it: ask no more: 
For tho' you should not prove it upon me. 
But keep that oath you swore, you might, perchance, 
Assay it on some one of the Table Round, 
And all because you dream they babble of yon." 

And "Vivien, frowning in true auger, said : 
•'What dare the full-fed liars say of me? 
They ride abroad redressing human wrongs '. 
They sit with knife in meat and wine iu horn. 
They bound to holy vows of chastity ! 
Were I not woman, I could tell a tale. 
But yon are man, you well can understand 
The shame that cannot be explain'd for shame. 
Not one of all the drove should touch me : swiue !" 

Then answer'd Merlin careless of her words, 
"You breathe but accusation vast and vague, 
Spleen-born, I think, and proofless. If you know, 
Set up the charge you know, to stand or fall !" 

And Vivien answer'd, frowning wrathfully: 
" O ay, what say ye to Sir Valence, him 
Whose kinsman left him watcher o'er his wife 
And two fair babes, and went to distant lands ; 
Was one year gone, and on returning found 
Not two but three : there lay the reckling, one 
But one hour old! What said the happy sire? 
A seven months' babe had been a truer gift. 
Those twelve sweet moons confused his fatherhood !' 

Then answer'd Merlin: "Nay, I know the tale. 
Sir Valence wedded with an outlaud dame : 
Some cause had kept him sunder'd from his wife:' 
One child they had: it lived with her: she died: 
His kinsman travelling on his owu aff"air 
Was charged by Valence to bring home the child. 
He brought, not found it therefore: take the truth.' 

"O ay," said Vivien, "overtrue a tale. 
What say ye then to sweet Sir Sagramore, 
That ardent man ? ' to plu.ck the flower in season ; 
So says the song, 'I trow it is no treason.' 
O Master, shall we call him overquick 
To crop his own sweet rose before the hour?" 

And Merlin answer'd: "Overquick are you 
To catch a lothly plume fall'n from the wing 
Of that foul bird of rapine whose whole prey 



Is man's good name : he never wrong'd his bride. 
I know the tale. An angry gust of wind 
Puff'd out his torch among the myriad-room'd 
And niauy-corridor'd complexities 
Of Arthur's palace : then he found a door 
And darkling felt the sculptured ornament 
That wreatheu round it made it seem his own ; 
And wearied out made for the couch and slept, 
A stainless man beside a stainless maid ; 
Aud either slept, nor knew of other there ; 
Till the high dawn piercing the royal rose 
In Arthur's casement glimmer'd chastely down. 
Blushing upon them blushing, and at once 
He rose without a word aud parted from her: 
But when the thing was blazed about the court, 
The brute world howling forced them into bonds, 
Aud as it chanced they are happy, being pure." 

" O ay," said Vivien, " that were likely too. 
What say ye then to fair Sir Percivale 
And of the horrid foulness that he wrought. 
The saintly youth, the spotless lamb of Chrii«f, 
Or some black wether of St. Satan's fold. 
What, in the precincts of the chapel-yard. 
Among the knightly brasses of the graves, 
And by the cold Hie Jacets of the dead !" 

And Merlin answer'd, careless of her charge : 
" A sober man is Percivale aud pure ; 
But once in life was fluster'd with new wine; 
Then paced for coolness in the chapel-yard, 
Where one of Satan's shepherdesses caught 
And meant to stamp him with her master's mark . 
And that he sinu'd, is not believable ; 
For, look upon his face !— but if he sinn'd. 
The sin that practice burns into the blood, 
And not the one dark hour which brings remor.sc, 
Will brand us, after, of whose fold we be: 
Or else were he, the holy king, whose hymns 
Are chanted in the minster, worse than all. 
But is your spleen froth'd out, or have ye more ?' 

Aud Vivien answer'd frowning yet in wrath : 
"O ay; what say ye to Sir Lancelot, friend? 
Traitor or true? that commerce with the Queen, 
I ask you, is it clamor'd by the child. 
Or whisper'd iu the corner? do you know it?" 

To which he answer'd sadly: "Yea, I know it. 
Sir Lancelot went ambassador, at first. 
To fetch her, aud she took him for the King ; 
So flxt her fancy on him: let him be, 
But have you uo one word of loyal praise 
For Arthur, blameless King and stainless man ?" 

She answer'd with a low and chuckling laugh : 
"Him?" is he man at all, who knows and winks? 
Sees what his fair bride is and does, and winks ? 
By which the good king means to blind himself, 
And blinds himself and all the Table Round 
To all the foulness that they work. Myself 
Could call him (were it not for womanhood) 
The pretty, popular name such manhood earns, 
Could call him the main cause of all their crime ; 
Yea, were he not crown'd kiug, coward, and fool." 

Then Merlin to his own heart, loathing, said: 
"O true and tender! O my liege and king! 
O selfless man and stainless gentleman. 
Who wouldst against thine own eye-witness fain 
Have all men true and leal, all women pure: 
How, in the mouths of base interpreters. 
From over-flneness not intelligible 
To things with every sense as false and foul 
As the poached fllth that floods the middle st,reet, 
Is thy white blaraelessness accounted blame !" 



VIVIEN. 



167 



But Vivieu deeming Merlin overborne 
By iustance, recommenced, and let her tongiie 
Rage like a fire among the noblest names, 
Polluting, and imputing her whole self, 
Defaming and defacing, till she left 
Not even Lancelot brave, nor Galahad clean. 

Her words had issue other than she will'd. 
He dragg'd his eyebrow bushes down, and made 
A snowy penthouse for his hollow eyes. 
And mutter'd in himself, " Tell her the charm ! 
So, if she had it, would she rail on me 
To snare the next, and if she have it not, 
80 will she rail. What did the wanton say? 
'Not mount as high;' we scarce can sink as low: 
y^ For men at most differ as Heaven and earth, 
But women, worst and best, as Heaven and Hell. 
I know the Table Round, my friends of old ; 
All brave, and many generous, and some chaste. 
I think she cloaks the wounds of loss with lies ; 
I do believe she tempted them and fail'd. 
She is so bitter: for fine plots may fail, 
Tho' harlots paiut their talk as well as face 
With colors of the heart that are not theirs. 
I will not let her know : nine tithes of times 
Face-flattgiijjis and backbiters are the same. 
AnTlFey, sweet soul, that most impute a crime 
Are pronest to it, and impute themselves, 
Wanting the mental rage ; or low desire 
Not to feel lowest makes them level all : 
Yea, they would pare the mountain to the plain, 
To leave an equal baseness ; and in this 
Are harlots like the crowd, that if they find 
So me stain or blemish in a name of note, 
Nofgrieviug that their greatest are so small. 
Inflate themselves with some insane delight, 
And judge all nature from her feet of clay. 
Without the will to lift their eyes, and see 
Her godlike head crown'd with spiritual fire. 
And touching other worlds. I am weary of her." 

He spoke in words part heard, in whispers part, 
Half-suffocated in the hoary fell 
And many-winter'd fleece of throat and chin. 
But Vivien, gathering somewhat of his mood. 
And hearing "harlot" mutter'd twice or thrice. 
Leapt from her session on his lap, aTurstoocT 
Stifi" as a viper frozen : loathsome sight. 
How from the rosy lips of life and love, 
Flash'd the bare-grinning skeleton of death ' ^ 
White was her cheek ; sharp breaths of anger pufi^d 
Her fairy nostril out; her hand half-clench 'd 
Went faltering sideways downward to her belt, 
. And feeling ; had she found a dagger there 
I (For in a wink the false love turns to hate) 

She would have stabb'd him ; but she found it not : 

His eye was calm, and suddenly she took 

To bitter weeping like a beaten child, 

A long, long weeping, not cousolable. 

Then her false voice made way broken with sobs. 

" O crueller than was ever told in tale, 
Or sung in soug^ O vainly lavish'd love ! 

cruel, tnere was nothing wild or strange, 
Or seeo3ingsham§£[jl, for what shame in love. 
So fove befrue, and not as yours ig — nothing 
Pool Vivien had not done to win his trust 
Who call'd her what he call'd her — all her crime. 
All — all — the wish to prove him wholly hers." 

She mused a little, and then clapt her hands 
Together with a wailing shriek, and said: 
"Stabb'd through the heart's aflfections to the heart ! 
Seeth'd like the kid in its own mother's milk ! 
Kill'd with a word worse than a life of blows ! 

1 thought that he was gentle, being great: 

God, that I had loved a smaller man ! 

1 should have found in him a greater heart. 



O, I, that flattering my true passion, saw 

The knights, the court, the king, dark in your light, 

Who loved to make men darker than they are, 

Because of that high pleasure which I had 

To seat you sole upon my pedestal 

Of worship — I am answer'd, and henceforth 

The course of life that seem'd so flowery to me 

With you for guide and master, only you. 

Becomes the sea-cliff pathway broken short. 

And ending in a ruin — nothing left. 

But into some low cave to crawl, and there, 

If the wolf spare me, weep my life away, 

Kill'd with unutterable unkindliness." 

She paused, she turn'd away, she hung her head. 
The snake of gold slid from her hair, the braid 
Slipt and nucoil'd itself, she wept afresh. 
And the dark wood grew darker toward the storm 
In silence, while his anger slowly died 
Within him, till he let his wisdom go 
For ease of heart, and half believed her true : 
Call'd her to shelter in the hollow oak, 
"Come from the storm," and having no reply. 
Gazed at the heaving shoulder, and the face 
Hand-hidden, as for utmost grief or shame ; 
Then thrice essay'd by tenderest-touching terms 
To sleek her rufBed peace of mind, in vain. 
At last she let herself be conquer'd by him. 
And as the cageling newly flown returns, 
The seeming-injured simple-hearted thing 
Came to her old perch back, and settled there. 
There while she sat, half-falling from his knees, 
Half-nestled at his heart, and since he saw 
The slow tear creep from her closed eyelid yet. 
About her, more in kindness than in love, 
The gentle wizard cast a shielding arm. 
But she disliuk'd herself at once and rose. 
Her arms upon her breast across, and stood 
A virtuous gentlewoman deeply wrong'd, 
Upright and flush'd before him: then she said: 

"There must be now no passages of love 
Betwixt us twain henceforward evermore. 
Since, if I be what I am grossly call'd. 
What should be granted which your own gross heart 
Would reckon worth the taking ? I will go. 
In truth, but one thing now — better have died 
Thrice than have ask'd it once — could make me stay- 
That proof of trust — so often asked in vaia ! 
How justly, after that vile term of yours, 
I find with grief; I might believe you then, 
Who knows ? once more. O, what was once to me 
Mere matter of the foncy, now has grown 
The vast necessity of heart and life. 
Farewell : think kindly of me, foi\ I fear 
My fate or fault, omitting gayer youth 
For one so old, must be to love you still. 
But ere I leave you let me swear once more 
That if I schemed against your peace in this, 
May yon just heaven, that darkens o'er me, send 
One flash, that, missing all things else, may make 
My scheming brain a cinder, if I lie." 

Scarce had she ceased, when out of heaven a bolt 
(For now the storm was close above them) struck, 
Furrowing a giant oak, and javelining 
With darted spikes and splinters of the wood 
The dark earth round. He raised his eyes and saw 
The tree that shone white-listed thro' the gloom. 
But Vivien, fearing heaven had heard her oath, 
And dazzled by the livid-flickering fork. 
And deafen'd with the stammering cracks and claps 
That follow'd, flying back and crying out, 
"O Merlin, tho' you do not love me, save, 
Yet save me !" clung to him and hugg'd him close : 
And call'd him dear protector in her fright. 
Nor yet forgot her practice in her fright. 
But wrought upon his mood and hugg'd him close 



168 



ELAINE. 



The pale blood of the wizard at her toucli 

Took gayer colors, like an opal warm'd. 

She blamed herself for telling hearsay tales : 

She shook from fear, and for her fault she wept 

Of petulancy ; she call'd him lord and liege, 

Her seer, her bard, her silver star of eve. 

Her God, her Merlin, the one passionate love 

Of her whole life ; and ever overhead 

Bellow'd the tempest, and the rotten branch 

Snapt in the rushing of the river-rain 

Above them ; and in change of glare and gloom 

Her eyes and neck glittering went and came; 

Till now the storm, its burst of passion spent. 

Moaning and calling out of other lands, 

Had left the ravaged woodland yet once more 

To peace ; and what should not have been had been, 

For Merlin, overtalk'd and overworn, 

Had yielded, told her all the charm, and slept. 

Then, in one moment, she put forth the charm 
Of woven paces and of waving hands, 
And in the hollow oak he lay as dead, 
And lost to life and use and name and fame. 

Then crying "I have made his glory mine,' 
And shrieking out " O fool !" the harlot leapt 
Adown the forest, and the thicket closed 
Behind her, and the forest echo'd "fool." 



ELAINE. 

Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable, 
Elaine, the lilj maid of Astolat, 
High in her chamber up a tower to the east 
Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot; 
Which first she placed where morning's earliest ray 
Might strike it, and awake her with the gleam ; 
Then fearing rust or-seilure, fashion'd for it 
A case of silk, and braided thereupon 
All the devices blazon'd on the shield 
In their own tinct, and added, of her wit, 
A border fantasy of branch and flower. 
And yellow-throated nestling in the nest. 
Nor rested thus content, but day by day 
Leaving her household and good father climb'd ' 
That eastern tower, and entering barr'd her door, 
Stript off the case, and read the naked shield, 
Now gness'd a hidden meaning in his arms. 
Now made a pretty history to herself 
Of every dint a sword had beaten in it. 
And every scratch a lance had made upon it, 
Conjecturing when and where : this cut is fresh : 
That ten years back ; this dealt him at Caerlyle , 
That at Caerleon ; this at Camelot : 
And ah, God's mercy, what a stroke was there ! 
And here a thrust that might have kill'd, but God 
Broke the strong lance, and roU'd his enemy down. 
And saved him: so she lived in fantasy. 

How came the uLyjnaid by that good shield 
Of Lancelot, she that knew not esla.his name? 
He left it with her, when he rode to tilt 
For the great diamond in the diamond jousts. 
Which Arthur had ordain'd, and by that name 
Had named them, since a diamond was the prize. 

For Arthur when none knew from whence he came, 
Long exB. the people chose him for their king. 
Roving the trackless realms of Lyonnesse, 
Had found a glen, gray boulder and black tarn. 
A horror liyed~abonT the ton, and clave 
Like its own mists to all the mountafn "side : 
For here two brothers, one a king, had met ^ 

And fought together: but their names were lost. ( 
And each had slain his brother at a blow. 
And down they fell and made the glen abhorr'd: 



And there they lay till all their bones were bleached, 

And lichen'd into color with the crags : 

And he that once was king had on a crown 

Of diamonds, one in front, and four aside. 

And Arthur came, and laboring up the pass 

All in a misty moonshine, unawares 

Had trodden that crown'd skeleton, and the skull 

Brake from the ndpe, and from the skull the crown 

Roifd into light, "and turning on its rims 

FTe'd'like a glittering rivulet to the tarn : 

And down the shingly scaur he plunged, and caught, 

And set it on his head, and in his heart 

Heard murmurs, " Lo, thou likewise shall be king." 

Thereafter, when a king, he had the gems 
Pluck'd from the crown, and showed them to his 

knights, 
Saying "These jewels, whereupon I chanced 
Divinely, are the kingdom's, not the king's — 
For public use : henceforward let there be, 
Once every year, a j^oust for one of these : 
For so by nine years' proof we needs must learn 
Which is our mightiest, and ourselves shall grow 
In use of arms and manhood, till we drive 
The Heathen, who, some say, shall rule the land 
Hereafter, which God hinder." Thus he spoke : 
And eight years past, eight jousts had beeu, and still 
Had Lancelot won the diamond of the year. 
With purpose to present them to the Queen, 
When all were won : but meaning all at once 
To snare her royal fancy with a boon 
Worth half her realm, had never spoken word. 

Now for the central diamond and the last 
And largest, Arthur, holding then his court 
Hard on the river nigh the place which now 
Is this world's hugest, let proclaim a joust 
At Camelot, and when the time drew nigh 
Spake (for she had been sick) to Guinevere, 
"Are you so sick, my Queen, you cannot move 
To these fair jousts?" "Yea, lord," she said, "you 

know it." 
" Then will you miss," he auswer'd " the great deeds 
Of Lancelot, and his prowess in the lists, 
A sight you love to look on." And the Queeu 
Lifted her eyes, and they dwelt languidly 
On Lancelot, where he stood beside the King. 
He thinking that he read her meaniug there, 
"Stay with me, I am sick; my love is more 
Than many diamonds," yielded, and a heart, 
iBve-loyal to the least wish of the Queen 
(However much he yearn 'd to make complete 
The tale of diamonds for his destined boon) 
Urged him to speak against the truth, and say 
" Sir King, mine ancient wound is hardly whole. 
And lets me from the saddle ;" and the King 
Glanced first at him, then her, and went his way. 
No sooner gone than suddenly she began: 

" To blame, my lord Sir Lancelot, much to blame. 
Why go you not to these fair jousts? the knights 
Are half of them our enemies, and the crowd 
Will murmur, lo the shameless ones, who take 
Their pastime now the trustful king is gone !" 
Then Lancelot, yext at having lied in vain : 
"Are you so wise? you were not once so wise. 
My Queen, that summer, when you loved me first. 
Then of the crowd you took no more account 
Than of the myriad cricket of the mead. 
When its own voice clings to each blade of grass, 
And every voice is nothing. As to knights, 
Them surely can I silence with all ease. 
But now my loyal worship is allow'd 
Of all men : many a bard, without offence. 
Has link'd our names together in his lay, 
Lancelot, the flower^ of-bKa very, Guinevere, \ 
The pearl of beauty^: and our knights at feast ) 
Have pledged us in this union, while the King 
Would listen smiling. How then ? is there more ? 



ELAINE. 



169 



Has Arthur spoken aught? or would yourself, 
Now weary of my service and devoir, 
Henceforth be truer to your faultless lord?" 

She broke into a little scornful laugh. 
" Arthur, my lord, Arthur, the faultless King, 
That passionate perfection, my good lord — 
But' Who can gaze upon the Sun in heaven? 
He never spake word of reproach to me. 
He never had a glimpse of mine untruth, 
He cares not for me : only here to-day 
There gleam'd a vague suspicion in his eves: 
Some meddling rogue has tamper'd with him— else 
Rapt in this fancy of his Table Round, 
And swearing men to vows impossible. 
To make them like himself: but, friend, to me 
He is all fault who hath no fault at all : '^ 
For who loves me must have a touch of earth ; 
The low sun makes the color : I am yours, 
Not Arthur's, as you know, save by the bond, 
And therefore hear my words : go to the jousts : 
The tiny-trumpeting gnat can break our drSatiS 
When sweetest ; and the vermin voices here 
May buzz so loud — we scorn them, but they sting." 

Then answer'd Lancelot, the chief of knights, 
" And with what face, after my pretext made. 
Shall I appear, O Queen, at Camelot, I 
Before a king who honors his own word, 
As if it were his God's ?" 

^ ' "Yea," said the Queen, 

'" A moral child without the craft to rule, 
Else had he not lost me: but listen to me. 
If I must find you wit : we hear it said 
That men go down before your spear at a touch 
But knowing you are Lancelot ; your great name, 
This conquers : hide it therefore ; go unknown : 
Win ! by this kiss you will : and our true king 
Will then allow your pretext, O my knight. 
As all for glory; for to speak him true. 
You know right well, how meek so e'er he seem, 
No keener hunter after glory breathes. 
He loves it in his knights more than himself: 
They prove to him his work: win and return." 

Then got Sir Lancelot suddenly to horse, 
Wroth at himself: not willing to be known. 
He left the barren-beaten thoroughfare. 
Chose the green path tbat 8hQ.w.'.d the rarer foot, 
And there among the solitary downs, 
Full often lost in fancy, lost his way ; , 
Till as he traced a faiutly-shadow'd track, 
That all in loops and links aniong the dales 
Ran to the Castle of Astolat, he saw 
Fired from the west, far on a hill, the towers. 
Thither he made and wound the gateway horn, 
Then came an old, dumb, myriad-wrinkledman ; 
Who let him into lodging, and disajmld- 
And Lancelot marvell'd at the wordless man : 
And issuing found the Lord of Astolat 
With two strong sonSj Sir Torre and Sir Lavaine, 
Moving to meet him in the castle court ; 
And close behind them stept the lily maid 
Elaine, his daughter : mother of the^Bovise^ 
There was not: some light jest among them rose 
With laughter dying down as the great knight 
Ap_prQach'd them: then the Lord of Astolat, 
"Whence comestthou, my guest, and by what name 
Livest between"the lips ? for by thy state 
AniPpresence I might guess thee chief of those, 
After the king, who eat in Arthur's halls. 
Him have I seen : the rest, his Table Round, 
Known as they are, to me they are unknown." 

Then aa§wer'cl,Lancelot, the chief of knights, 
"Known am I, and of Arthur's hall, and known. 
What I by mere mischance have brought, my shield. 
But since I go to joust as one unkuown 



At Camelot for the diamond, ask me not. 
Hereafter you shall know me— and the shield — 
I pray you lend me one, if such you have, 
Blank, or at least with some device not mine." 

Then said the Lord of Astolat, " Here is Torre's : 
Hurt in his first tilt was my son. Sir Torre. 
And, so, God wot, his shield is blank enough. 
His you can have." Then fidded plain Sir Torre, 
"Yea since I cannot use it, you may have it." 
Here laugh'd the father, saying, "Fie, Sir Churl, 
Is that an^'auswer for a noble knight? 
Allow him : but Lavaine, my younger here, 
He is so full of lustihood, he will ride 
Joust for it, and win, and bring it in an hour 
And set it in this damsel's golden hair. 
To make her thrice as wilful as before." 

"Nay, father, nay, good father, shame me not 
Before this noble knight," said youug Lavaine, 
"For nothing. Surely I but play'd on Jon-e: 
He seem'd so sullen, vext^ he could not go : 
A jesf, no" more: for, knight, the maiden drgaiot 
■That some one put this diamond in her hand. 
And that it was too slippery to be held. 
And slipt and fell into some pool or stream, 
The castle-well, belike : and then I said 
That if I went and if I fought and won it 
(But all was jest and joke among ourselves) 
Then must she keep it safelier. All was jest. 
But father give me leave, an if he will, 
To ride to Camelot with this noble knight: 
Win shall I not, but do my best to win: 
Young as I am, yet would I do my best." 

• "So you will grace me," answer'd Lancelot, 

Smiling a moment, "with your fellowship 

O'er these waste downs whereon I lost myself. 

Then were I glad of you as guide and friend ; 

And you shall win this diamond— as I hear, 

It is a fair large diamond,— if you may, 

And yield it to this maiden if you will." 

"A fair large diamond," added plain Sir Torre, 

"Such be for Queens and not for simple maids." 

Then she, who held her eyes upon the ground, 

Elaine, and heard her name so tost about, 

Flush'd slightlj at the slight disparagement 

Before the stranger knight, who, looking at her, 

Full courtly, yet not falsely, thus return'd: 

"If what is fair be but for what is fair. 

And only Queens are to be counted so. 

Rash were my judgment then, who deem this maid 

Might wear as fair a jewel as is on earth, 

Not violating the bond of like to like." 

He spoke and ceased: the lil^maid Elaine, 
Won by the mellow voice before she look'di 
Lifted her eyes, and r«ad his lineaments. 
The great and guilty love he bare the Queen, 
In battle with the love he bare his lord, 
Had marr'd his face, and mark'd it ere his time. 
Another sinning on such heights with one. 
The flower of all the west and all the world. 
Had been the sleeker for it: but in him 
His mood was often like a fiend, and rose 
And drove him into wastes and solitudes 
For agony, who was yet a living soul. 
Marr'd as he was, he seem'd the goodliest man. 
That ever among ladiefate in Hall, 
And noblest, when she lifted up her eyes. 
However marr'd, of more than twice her years, 
Seam'd with an ancient swordcut on the cheek. 
And bruised and bronzed, she lifted up her eyes 
And love3 him, with that love which was her doom. 

Then the great knight, the darling of the court. 
Loved o f the loveliest, into that rude hall 
Stept witlfall grace, and not with half disdain 



170 



ELAINE. 



Hid under grace, as in fi smaller time, 

But kindly man moving among his kind: 

Whom they with meats and vintage of their hest 

And talk and minstrel melody eutertain'd. 

And much they~ask'd of court and Table Round, 

And ever well and readily answer'd he : 

But Lancelot, when they glanced at Guinevere, 

Suddenly ^speaking of the wordless man, 

Heard'froni tlie^aron that, ten years before, 

The heathen caught and reft him of his tongue. 

"He learnt and warn'd me of their tierce design 

Against my house, and him they caught and maim'd: 

But I my sons and little daughter fled 

From bonds or death, and dwelt among the woods 

By the great river in a boatman's hut. 

Dull days were those, till our good Arthur broke 

The Pagan yet once more on Badon hill." 

"O there, great Lord, doubtless," Lavaine said, rapt 
By all the sweet and sudden passion of youth 
Toward greatness in its elder, "you have fought. 
O tell us; for we live apart, you know 
Of Arthur's glorious wars." And Lancelot spoke 
And answer'd him at full, as having been 
With Arthur in the light which all day long 
Rang by the white mouth of the violent Glem ; 
And in the four wild battles by the shore 
Of Duglas : that on Bassa ; then the war 
That thunder'd in and out the gloomy skirts 
Of Ceiidon the forest ; and again 
By castle Gurnion where the glorious King 
Had on his cuirass worn our Lady's Head, 
Carved of one emerald, centred in a sun 
Of silver rays, that lighteu'd as Ije breathed ; 
And at Caerleon had he help'd his lord, 
When the strong neighings of the \yild white Horse 
Set every gilded parapet shuddering ; '' 

And up in Agued Cathregonion too, 
And down the waste sand-shores of Trath Treroit, 
Where many a heathen fell; "and on the mount 
Of Badon I myself beheld the King 
Charge at the head of all his Table Round, 
And all his legions cryiug Christ and him. 
And break them ; and I saw him, after, stand 
High on a heap of slain, from spur to plume 
Red as the rising suu with heathen blood, 
And seeing me, with a great voice he cried, 
'They are broken, they are broken,' for the King, 
However mild he seems at home, nor cares 
For triumph in our mmiic wars, the jousts — 
For if his own knight cast him down, he laughs 
Saying, his knights are better men than he- 
Yet in this heathen war the fire of God 
Fills him ; I never saw his like ; there lives 
No greater leader." 

While he utter'd this. 
Low to her own heart said the lily maid, 
"Save your great self, fair lord;" and when he fell 
From talk of war to traits of pleasantry- 
Being mirthful he but in a stately kind- 
She still took note that when the living smile 
Died from his lips, across him came a cloud 
Of melancholy severe, from which again. 
Whenever in her hovering to and fro 
The lily maid had striven to make him cheer. 
There brake a sudden-beaming tenderness 
Of manners and of nature : and she thought 
That all was nature, all, perchance, for her. 
And all night long his face before her lived, 
"'"As when a painter, poring on a face, 
Divinely thro' all hindrance finds the man 
Behind it, and so paints him that his face, 
The shape and color of a mind and life. 
Lives for his children, ever at its best 

And fullest ; so the face before her lived, 

Dark-splendid, speaking in the silence, full 
Of noble things, and held her from her sleep. 
Till rathe she rose, half-cheated in the thought 



She needs must bid farewell to sweet Lavaine. 

First as in fear, step after step, she stole, 

Down the long tower-stairs, hesitating : 

Anon, she heard Sir Lancelot cry in the court, 

" This shield, ray friend, where is it?" and Lavaine 

Past inward, as she came from out the tower. 

There to his proud horse Lancelot turn'd, and smooth'd 

The glossy shoulder, humming to himself. 

Half-envious of the flattering hand, she drew 

Nearer and stood. He look'd, and more amazed 

Than if seven men had set upon him, saw 

The maiden standing in the dewy light. 

He had not dreamed she was so beautiful. 

Then came on him a sort of sacred fear, 

For silent, tho' he greeted her, she stood 

Rapt on his face as if it were a God's. 

Suddenly flashed on her a wild desire, 

That he should wear her favor at the tilt.. 

She braved a riotous heart in asking for it. 

" Pair lord, whose name I know not- noble it is, 

I well believe, the noblest — will you wear 

My favor at this tourney?" "Nay," said be, 

" Fair lady, since I never yet have worn 

Favor of any lady in the lists. 

Such is my wont, as those who know ma, know." 

"Yea, so," she answer'd; " then in wearing mine 

Needs must be lesser likelihood, noble lord. 

That those who know should know you." And he 

turn'd 
Her counsel up and down within his mind. 
And found it true, and answer'd, " True, my" child. 
Well, I will wear it : fetch it out to me : 
What is it?" and she told him "a red sleeve 
Broider'd with pearls," and brought it: then he 

bound 
Her token on his helmet, with a smile 
Saying, "I never yet have done so much 
For any maiden living," and the blood 
Sprang to her face, and fiU'd her with delight ; 
But left her all the paler, when Lavaine 
Returning brought the yet unblazon'd shield, 
His brother's ; which he gave to Lancelot, 
Who parted with his own to fair Elaine ; 
"Do me this grace, my child, to have my shield 
In keeping till I come." " A grace to me," 
She answer'd, "twice to-day. I am your Squire." 
Whereat Lavaine said laughing, " Lily maid. 
For fear our people call you lily maid 
In earnest, let me bring your color back : 
Once, twice, and thrice : now get you hence to bed:" 
So kiss'd her, and Sir Lancelot his own hand, 
And thus they mov'd away: she stay'd a minute. 
Then made a sudden step to the gate, and there — 
Her bright hair blown about the serious face 
Yet rosy-kindled with her brother's kiss — 
Paused in the gateway, standing by the shield 
In silence, while she watch'd their arms far off 
Sparkle, until they dipt below the downs. 
Then to her tower she climb'd, and took the shield, 
There kept it, and so lived in fantasy. 

Meanwhile the new companions past away 
Far o'er the long backs of the bushlcss downs. 
To where Sir Lancelot knew there lived a knight 
Not far from Camelot, now for forty years 
A hermit, who had pray'd, laboc'd and pray'd 
And ever laboring had scoop'd himself 
In the white rock a chapel and a hall 
On massive columns, like a shorecliff cave, 
And cells and chambers: all were fair and dry; 
The green light from the meadows underneath 
Struck up and lived along the milky roofs ; 
And in the meadows tremulous aspen-trees 
And poplars made a noise of falling showers, 
And thither wending there that night they bode. 

But when the next day broke from underground. 
And shot red fire and shadows thro' the cave. 






vU*i^ 



ELAINE. 



171 



'I'hey rose, heard mass, broke fast, and rode away : 
Then Lancelot saying, "Hear, but hold my name 
Hidden, you ride with Lancelot of the Lake," 
Abash'd Lavaine, whose instant reverence. 
Dearer to true young hearts than their own praise, 
But left him leave to stammer, "Is it indeed ■•" 
And after muttering "the great Lancelot" 
At last he got his breath and answer'd, "One, 
One have I seen— that other, our liege lord, 
The dread Pendragou, Britain's king of king?, 
Of whom the people talk mysteriously. 
He will be there— then were I stricken blind 
That minute, I might say that I had seen." 

So spake Lavaine, and when they reach'd the lists 
By Camelot in the meadow, let his eyes 
Run thro' the peopled gallery which half round 
Lay like a rainbow fall'n upon the grass. 
Until they found the clear-faced King, who sat 
Robed in red samite, easily to be known, 
Since to his crown the golden dragon clung. 
And down his robe the dragon writhed in gold, 
And from the carven-work behind him crept 
Two dragons gilded, sloping down to make 
Arras for his chair, while all the rest of them 
Thro' knots and loops and folds innumerable • 
Fled ever thro' the woodwork, till they found 
The new design wherein they lost themselves, 
Yet with all ease, so tender was the work: 
And, in the costly canopy o'er him set. 
Blazed the last diamond of the nameless king. 

Then Lancelot answer'd young Lavaine and said, 
"Me you call great: mine is the firmer seat. 
The truer lance : but there is many a youth 
Now crescent, who will come to all I am 
And overcome it: and in me there dwells 
No greatness, save it be some far-off touch 
Of greatness to know well I am not great : 
There is the man." And Lavaine gaped upon him 
As on a thing miraculous, and anon 
The trumpets blew ; and then did either side, 
They that assailed, and they that held the lists, 
Set lance in rest, strike spur, suddenly move. 
Meet in the midst, aud there so furiously 
Shock, that a man far-off might well perceive, 
If any man that day were left afiekl. 
The hard earth shake, aud a low thunder of arms. 
And Lancelot bode a little, till he saw 
Which were the weaker : then he hurl'd into it 
Against the stronger: little need to speak 
Of Lancelot in his glory : King, duke, earl. 
Count, baron — whom he smote, he overthrew. 

But in the field were Lancelot's kith and kin, 
Ranged with the Table Round that held the lists. 
Strong men, and wrathful that a stranger knight 
Should do and almost overdo the deeds 
Of Lancelot; and one said to the other, " Lo ! 
What is he ? I do not mean the force alone, 
The grace and versatility of the man — 
Is it not Lancelot !" " When has Lancelot worn 
Favor of any lady in the lists ? 
Not such his wont, as we, that know him, know." 
"How then? who then?" a fury seized on them, 
A fiery family passion for the name 
Of Lancelot, and a glory one with theirs. 
They couch'd their spears aud prick'd their steeds 
and thus, 
I Their plumes driv'n backward by the wind they made 
In moving, all together down upon him 
Bare, as a wild wave in the wild North-sea, 
Green-glimmering toward the summit, bears, with all 
Its stormy crests that smote against the skies, 
Down on a bark, and overbears the bark. 
And him that helms it, so they overbore \ 
Sir Lancelot and his charger, and a spear 
Down-glancing lamed the charger, and a spear 



Prick'd sharply his own cuirass, and the head 
Pierced thro' his side, and there snapt, aud remaiu'd. 

Then Sir Lavaine did well and worshipfully ; 
He bore a knight of old repute to the earth. 
And brought his horse to Lancelot where he lay. 
He up the side, sweating with agony, got, 
But thought to do while he might yet eudure, 
And being lustily holpen by the rest, 
His party,— tho' it seemed half-miracle 
To tliose he fought with— drave his kith and kiu, 
And all the Table Round that held the lists. 
Back to the barrier ; then the heralds blew 
Proclaiming his the prize, who wore the sleeve 
Of scarlet, and the pearls ; and all the knights 
His party, cried "Advance, and take your prize 
The diamond;" but he auswer'd, "Diamond me 
No diamonds ! for God's love, a little air ! 
Prize me no prizes, for my prize is death ! 
Hence will I and I charge you, follow me not." 

He spoke, and vanish'd suddenly from the field 
With young Lavaiue into the poplar grove. . 

There from his charger down he slid, and sat, 
Gasping to Sir Lavaiue, "Draw the lance-head:" 
"Ah, my sweet lord, Sir Lancelot," said Lavaine, 
"I dread me, if I draw it, you will die." 
But he, "I die already with it: draw- 
Draw "-and Lavaiue drew, and that other gave 
A marvellous great shriek and ghastly groan. 
And half his blood burst forth, and down he sank 
For the pure pain, and wholly swoon'd away. 
Then came the hermit out aud bare him in. 
There stanch 'd his wound ; and there, in daily doubt 
Whether to live or die, for many a week 
Hid from the wide world's rumor by the grove 
Of poplars with their noise of falling showers, 
And ever-tremulous aspeu-trees, he lay. 

But on that day when Lancelot fled the lists. 
His party, kuights of utmost North and West, 
Lords of waste marches, kings of desolate isles. 
Came round their great Pendragon, sa3'ing to him, 
" Lo, Sire, our knight thro' whom we won the day 
Hath gone sore wounded, and hath left his prize 
LTntaken, crying that his prize is death." 
"Heaven hinder," said the King, "that such an one. 
So great a knight as we h^ave seen to-day — 
He seem'd to me another Lancelot- 
Yea, twenty times I thought him Lancelot — 
He must not pass uncared for. Gawain, rise, 
My nephew, aud ride forth aud find the knight. 
Wounded and wearied, needs must he be near. 
I charge you that yon get at once to horse. 
And, kuights and kings, there breathes not one of 

you 
Will deem this prize of ours is rashly given : 
His prowess was too wondrous. We will do him 
No customary honor: since the knight 
Came not to us, of us to claim the prize, 
I Ourselves will send it after. Wherefore take 
i This diamond, and deliver it, and return, 
I And bring us what he is aud how he fares, 
i And cease not from your quest, until you find." 

} So saying from the carven flower above, 
! -To which it made a restless heart, he took, 
Aud gave, the diamond : then from where he sat 
At Arthur's right, with smiling face arose, 
j With smiling face and frowning heart, a Prince 
lu the mid might and flourish of his May, 
Gawain, surnamed The Courteous, fair aud strong. 
And after Lancelot, Tristram, and Geraint 
Aud Lamorack, a good knight, but therewithal 
Sir Mod red's brother, of a crafty house, 
Nor often loyal to his word, and now 
Wroth that the king's command to sally forth 
In quest of whom he knew not, made him leave 
The banquet, and concourse of knights and kings. 



172 



ELAINE. 



So all in wrath he got to horse and went; 
While Arthur to the banquet, dark in mood, 
Past, thinking, " Is it Lancelot who has come 
Despite the wound he spake of, all for gaiji 
Of glory, and has added wound to wound, 
And ridd'n away to die?" So fear'd the King, 
And after two days' tarriance there, return'd. 
Then when he saw the Queen, embracing, ask'd, 
"Love, are you yet so sick?" "Nay, lord," she said. 
"And where is Lancelot?" Then the Queen amazed, 
" Was he not with you ? Avon he not your prize ?" 
"Nay, but one like him." "Why that like was he." 
And when the King demanded how she knew, 
Said, "Lord, no sooner had you parted from us. 
Than Lancelot told me of a common talk 
That men went down before his spear at a touch. 
But knowing he was Lancelot ; his great name 
Conquer'd ; and therefore would he hide his name 
Prom all men, e'en the king, and to this end 
Had made the pretext of a hindering wound. 
That he might joust unknown of all, and learn' 
If his old prowess were in aught decay'd"; 
'And added, 'Our true Arthur, when he learns. 
Will well allow my pretext, as for gain 
Of purer glory.' " 

Then replied the King: 
" Far lovelier in our Lancelot had it been. 
In lieu of idly dallying with the truth. 
To have trusted me as he has trusted you. 
Surely his king and most familiar friend 
Might well have kept his secret. True, indeed. 
Albeit I know my knights fantastical. 
So flue a fear in our large Lancelot 
Must needs have moved ray laughter: now remains 
But little cause for laughter: his own kin- 
Ill news, my Queen, for all who love him, these ! 
His kith and kin, not knowing, set upon him; 
So that he went sore wounded from the field : 
Yet good news too : for goodly hopes are mine 
That Lancelot is no more a lonely heart. 
He wore, against his wont, upon his helm 
A sleeve of scarlet, broidered with great pearls, 
Some gentle maiden's gift." 

"Yea, lord," she said, 
" Your hopes are mine," and saying that she choked. 
And sharply turn'd about to hide her face, 
Moved to her chamber, and there flung herself 
Down on the great King's couch, and writhed upon 

it. 
And clench'd her fingers till they bit the palm, 
And shriek'd out " traitor " to the unhearfug wall. 
Then flash'd into wild tears, and rose again, 
And moved about her palace, proud and pale. 

Gawain the while thro' all the region round 
Rode with his diamond, wearied of the quest, 
Touch'd at all points, except the poplar grove. 
And came at last, tho' late, to Astolat : 
\VTiom glittering in enamell'd arms the maid 
Glanced at, and cried "What news from Camelot, 

lord ? 
What of the knight with the red sleeve?" "He 

won." 
"I knew it," she said. "But parted from the jousts 
Hurt in the side," whereat she caught her breath. 
Thro' her own side she felt the sharp lance go: 
Thereon she smote her hand : wellnigh she swoon'd: 
And while he gazed wonderingly at her, came 
The lord of Astolat out, to whom the Prince 
Reported who he was, and on what quest 
Sent, that he bore the prize and could not find 
The victor, but had riddeii wildly round 
To seek him, and was wearied of the search. 
To whom the lord of Astolat, "Bide with us. 
And ride no longer wildly, noble Prince ! 
Here was the knight, and here he left a shield ; 
This will he send or come for: furthermore 
Our son is with him ; we shall hear anon, 



Needs must we hear." To this the courteous Prince 

Accorded with his wonted courtesy, 

Courtesy with a touch of traitor in it. 

And stay'd ; and cast his eyes on fair Elaine : 

Where could be found fiice daintier ? then her shape 

From forehead down to foot perfect — again 

From foot to forehead exquisitely turn'd : 

" Well— if I bide, lo I this wild flower for me !" 

And oft they met among the garden yews, 

And there he set himself to play upon her 

With sallying wit, free flashes from a height 

Above her, graces of the court, and songs, 

Sighs, and slow smiles, and golden eloquence 

And amorous adulation, till the maid 

Rebell'd against it, saying to him, "Prince, 

O loyal nephew of our noble King, 

Why ask you not to see the shield he left. 

Whence you might learn his name? Why slight 

your King, 
And lose the quest he sent you on, and prove 
No surer than our falcon yesterday. 
Who lost the hern we slipt him at, and went 
To all the winds?" "Nay, by mine head," said he, 
"t lose it, as we lose the lark in heaven, 

damsel, in the light of your blue eyes : 
But an you will it let me see the shield." 

And when the shield was brought, and Gawain saw 
Sir Lancelot's azur£ lions, crown'd with gold. 
Ramp in the field, he smote his thigh and mock'd; 
"Right was the King! our Lancelot! that true map !" 
"And right was I," she answer'd merrily, "I, 
Who dream'd my knight the greatest knight of all." 
"And if / dream'd," said Gawain, "that you love 
This greatest knight, your pardon ! lo, you know it 1 
Speak therefore : shall I waste myself in vain ?" 
Pull simple was her answer: "What know I? 
My brethren have been all my fellowship, 
And I, when often they have talked of love, 
Wisli'd it had been my mother, for they talk'd, 
Meseem'd, of what they knew not; so myself— 

1 know not if I know what true love is. 
But if I know, then, if I love not him, 
Methinks there is none other I can love." 

"Yea, by God's death," said he, "yon love him well, 

"But would not, knew you what all others know, 

And whom he loves." "So be it," cried Elaine, 

And lifted her fair face and moved away : 

But he pursued her calling, "Stay a little! 

One golden minute's grace : he wore your sleeve : 

Would he break faith with one I may not name ? 

Must our true man change like a leaf at last? ' 

May it be so? why then, far be it from me 

To cross our mighty Lancelot in his loves ! 

And, damsel, for I deem you know full well 

Where your great knight is hidden, let me leave 

My quest -with you ; the diamond also : here ! 

For if you love, it will be sweet to give it ; 

And if he love, it will be sweet to have it 

From your own hand ; and whether he love or not, 

A diamond is a diamond. Fare you well 

A thousand times ! — a thousand times farewell ! 

Yet, if be love, and his love hold, we two 

May meet at court hereafter; there, I think, 

So you will learn the courtesies of the court. 

We two shall know each other." 

Then he gave. 
And slightly kiss'd the hand to which he gave. 
The diamond, and all wearied of the quest 
Leapt on his horse, and carolling as he went 
A true-love ballad, lightly rode away. 

Thence to the court he past ; there told the King 
What the King knew, "Sir Lancelot is the knight." 
And added, " Sire, my liege, so much I learnt ; 
But fail'd to find him tho' I rode all round 
The region : but I lighted on the maid, 
Whose sleeve he wore; she loves him; and to her, 
Deeming our courtesy is the truest law, 



ELAINE. 



173 



J gave the diamond: she will render it; 

For by mine head she knows his hiding-place." 

The seldom-frowning King frown'd, and replied, 
"Too courteous truly ! you shall go no more 
On quest of mine, seeing that you forget 
Obedience is the courtesy due to kings." 

He spake and parted. Wroth but all in awe, 
For twenty strokes of the blOod, without a word, 
Linger'd that other, staring after him ; 
Then shook his hair, strode ofl', and buzz'd abroad 
About the maid of Astolat, and her love. 
All ears were prick'd at once, all tongues were loosed : 
" The maid of Astola-t loves Sir Lancelot, 
Sir Lancelat loves the maid of Astolat." 
Some read the King's face, some the Queen's, and all 
Had marvel what the maid might be, but most 
Predoom'd her as unworthy. One old dame 
Came sudd-euly on the Queen with the sharp news. 
She, that had heard the noise of it before, 
But sorrowing Lancelot should have stoop'd so low, 
Marr'd her friend's point with pale tranquillity. 
So ran the tale like fire about the court. 
Fire in dry stubble a nine days' wonder flared : 
Till ev'n the knights at banquet twice or thrice 
Forgot to drink to Lancelot and the Queen, 
And pledging Lancelot and the lily maid 
Smiled at each other, while the Queen who sat 
With lips severely placid felt the knot 
Climb in her throat, and with her feet unseen 
Crush'd the wild passion out against the floor 
Beneath the banquet, where the meats became 
As wormwood, and she hated all who pledged. 

But far away the maid in Astolat, 
Her guiltless rival, she that ever kept 
The one-day-seen Sir Lancelot in her heart. 
Crept to her father, while he mused alone, 
Sat on his knee, stroked his gray face and said, 
"Father, you callme wilful, and the fault 
Is yours who let me have my will, and now. 
Sweet father, will you let me lose my wits?" 
"Nay," said he, "surely." "Wherefore let me hence," 
She answer'd, "and find out our dear Lavaiue." 
"You will not lose your wits for dear Lavaiue: 
Bide," answer'd he : " we needs must hear anon 
Of him, and of that other." " Ay," she said, 
" And of that other, for I needs must hence 
And find that other, wheresoe'er he be, 
And with mine own hand give his diamond to him, 
Lest I be found as faithless in the quest 
As yon proud Prince who left the quest to me. 
Sweet father, I behold him in my dreams 
Gaunt as it were the skeleton of himself, 
Death-pale, for lack of gentle maiden's aid. 
The gentler-born the maiden, the more bound, 
My father, to be sweet and serviceable 
To noble knights in sickness, as you know. 
When these have worn their tokens: let me hence 
I pray you." Then her fathar nodding said, 
"Ay, ay, the diamond: wit you well, my child, 
Right fain were I to learn this knight were whole. 
Being our greatest : yea, and you must give it — 
And sure 1 think this fruit is hung too higlu 
For any mouth to gape for save a Queen's-? 
Nay, I mean nothing: so then, get you gone, 
Being so very wilful you must go." 

Lightly, her suit allow'd, she sllpt away, 
And while she made her ready for her ride, 
Her father's latest word humm'd in her ear, 
" Being so very wilful you must go," 
And changed itself and echoed in her heart, 
"Being so very wilful yon must die.'- 
But she was tiappy enough and shook it ofl", 
As we shake off the bee that buzzes at us . 
And lu her heart she answer'd it and said, 



"What matter, so I help him back to life?" 

Then far away with good Sir Torre for guide 

Rode o'er the long backs of the bushless downs 

To Camelot, and before the city-gates 

Came on her brother with a happy face 

Making a roan horse caper and curvet 

For pleasure all about a field of flowers : 

Whom when she saw, "Lavaine," she cried, "Layaine, 

How fares my lord Sir Lancelot ?" He amazed, 

"Torre and Elaine! why here? Sir Lancelot! 

How know you my lord's name is Lancelot ?" 

But when the maid had told him all her tale. 

Then turn'd Sir Torre, and being in his moods 

Left them, and under the strange-statued gate. 

Where Arthur's wars were render'd mystically, 

Past up the still rich city to his kin. 

His own far blood, which dwelt at Camelot ■. 

And her Lavaine across the poplar grove 

Led to the caves : there first she saw the casque 

Of Lancelot on the wall : her scarlet sleeve, 

Tho' carved and cut, and half the pearls away, 

Stream'd from it still ; and in her heart she laugh'd, 

Because he had not loosed it from his helm, 

But meant once more perchance to tourney in it. 

And when they gain'd the cell in which he slept, 

His battle-writhen arms and mighty hands 

Lay naked on the wolfskin, and a dream 

Of dragging down his enemy made them move. 

Then she that saw him lying unsleek, unshorn, 

Gaunt as it were the skeleton of himself, 

Utter'd a little tender dolorous cry. 

The sound not wonted in a place so still 

Woke the sick knight, and while he roll'd his eyes 

Yet blank from sleep, she started to him, saying, 

"Your prize the diamond sent you by the King:" 

His eyes glisten'd: she fancied "is it for me?" 

And when the maid had told him all the tale 

Of King and Prince, the diamond sent, the quest 

Assign'd to her not worthy of it, she knelt 

Full lowly by the corners of his bed, 

And laid the diamond in his open hand. 

Her face was near, and as we kiss the child 

That does the task assign'd, he kissd her face. 

At once she slipt like water to the floor. 

"Alas," he said, "your ride has wearied you. 

Rest must you have." "No rest for me," she said: 

"Nay, for near you, fair lord, I am at rest." 

What might she mean by that ? his large black eyes. 

Yet larger thro' his leanness, dwelt upon her. 

Till all her heart's sad secret blazed itself 

In the heart's colors on her simple face; 

And Lancelot look'd and was perplext in mind, 

And being weak in body said no more; 

But did not love the color ; woman's love, 

Save one, he not regarded, and so turn'd 

Sighing, and feigu'd a sleep until he slept. 

Then rose Elaine and glided thro' the fleld.~. 
And past beneath the wildly-sculptared gates 
Far up the dim rich city to her kin; 
There bode the night : but woke with dawn, and past 
Down thro' the dim rich city to the fields. 
Thence to the cave : so day by day she past 
In either twilight ghost-like to and fro 
Gliding, and every d.ay she tended him. 
And likewise many a night : and Lancelot 
Would, tho' he call'd his wound a little hurt 
Whereof he should be quickly whole, at times 
Brain-feverous in his heat and agony, seem 
Dncourteous, even he : but the meek maid 
Sweetly forbore him ever, being to him 
Meeker than any child to a rough nurse. 
Milder than any mother to a sick child, 
And never woman yet, since man's first fall, 
Did kindlier unto man, but her deep love 
Upbore her; till the hermit, skill'd in all 
The simples and the science of that time. 
Told him that her fine care had saved his life. 



174 



ELAINE. 



And the sick mau forgot her simple blush, 

Would call her frieud and sister, sweet Elaine, 

Would listen for her coming and regret 

Her parting step, and held her tenderly, 

And loved her with all love except the love 

Of man and woman when they love their best 

Closest and sweetest, and had died the death 

In any knightly fashion for her sake. 

And peractventure had he seen her ttrst 

She might haye made this and that other world 

Another world for the sick man; but now 

The shackles of an old love straiten'd him, 

His honor rooted in dishonor stood, 

And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true. 

Yet the great knight in his mid-sickness made 
Full many a iioly vow and pure resolve. 
These, as but born ol sickness, could not live : 
For when the blood ran lustier in him again. 
Full often the sweet image ol one face, 
Making a treacherous quiet in his heart. 
Dispersed his resolution like a cloud. 
Then if the maiden, while that ghostly grace 
Beam'd on his fancy, .spoke, he answer'd not. 
Or short and coldly, and she knew right well 
What the rough sickness meant, but what this meant 
She knew not, and the s(n-row dimm'd her sight, 
And drave her ere her time across the fields 
Far into the rich city, where alone 
She murmur'd, " Vaiu, in vain: it cannot be. 
He will not love me : how then ? must I die ?" 
Then as a little helpless innocent bird, 
That has but one plain passage of few notes, 
Will sing the simple passage o'er and o'er 
For all an April morning, till the ear 
Wearies to hear it, so the simple maid 
Went half the night repeating, "Must I die?" 
And now to right she turn'd, and now to left, 
And found no ease in turning or in rest : 
And "him or death" she mutter'd, "death or him," 
Again and like a burthen, " him or death." 

But when Sir Lancelot's deadly hurt was whole, 
To Astalot returning rode the three. 
There morn by morn, arraying her sweet self 
In that wherein she deem'd she look'd her best, 
She came before Sir Lancelot, for she thought 
" If I be loved, these are my festal robes. 
If not, the victim's flowers before he fall." 
And Lancelot ever prest upon the maid 
That she should ask some goodly gift of him 
For her own self or hers; "and do not shun 
To speak the wish most near to your true heart ; 
Such service have you done me, that I make 
My will of yours, and Prince and Lord am I 
In mine own land, and what I will I can." 
Then like a ghost she lifted up her face. 
But like a ghost without the power to speak. 
And Lancelot saw that she withheld her wish, 
And bode among them yet a little space, 
Till he should learn it; and one morn it chanced 
He found her in among the garden }'ews. 
And said, "Delay no longer, speak your wish. 
Seeing I must go to-day;" then out she brake: 
" Going 1 and we shall never see you more. 
And I must die for want of one bold word.'" 
"Speak: that I live to hear," he said, "is yours." 
Then sttddenly and passionately she spoke : 
"I have gone mad. I love you: let me die. ' 
"Ah sister," answer'd Lancelot, "what is this?" 
And innocently extending her white arms, 
"Your love," she said, "your love — to be your wife."' 
And Lancelot answer'd, "Had I chos'n to wed, 
I had been wedded earlier, sweet Elaine : 
But now there never will be wife of mine."' 
"No, no," she cried, "I care not to be wife, 
But to be with you still, to see your face. 
To serve you, and to follow you thro- the world." 



And Lancelot answer'd, " Nay, the world, the world. 

All ear and eye, with such a stupid heart 

To interpret ear and eye, and such a tongue 

To blare its own interpretation — nay. 

Full ill then should I quit your brother's love. 

And your good father's kindness." And she said, 

" Not to be with you, not to see your face — 

Alas for me then, my good days are done." 

"Nay, noble maid," he answer'd, "ten times nay i" 

This is not love : but love's first flash in youth. 

Most common: yea, I know it of mine own self: 

And you yourself will smile at your own self 

Hereafter, when you yield your flower of life 

To one more fitly yours, not thrice your age : 

And then will I, for true you are and sweet 

Beyond mine old belief in womanhood, 

More specially should your good knight be poor, 

Endow you with broad laud and territory 

Even to the half my realm beyond the seas. 

So that would make you happy; furthermore, 

Ev'n to the death, as tho' you were my blood. 

In all your quarrels will I be your knight. 

This will I do, dear damsel, for your sake. 

And more than this I cannot." 

While he spoke 
She neither blush'd nor shook, but deathly-pale 
Stood grasping what was nearest, then replied, 
"Of all this will I nothing;" and so fell. 
And thus they bore her swooning to her tower. 

Then spake, to whom thro' those black walls of 
yew 
Their talk had pierced, her father, " Ay, a flash, 
I fear me, that will strike my blossom dead. 
Too courteous are you, fair Lord Lancelot. 
I pray you, use some rotigh discourtesy 
To blunt or break her passion." 

Lancelot said, 
" That \vere against me ; what I can I will :" 
And there that day remained, and toward even 
Sent for his shield: full meekly rose the maid, 
Stript oft' the case, and gave the naked shield ; 
Then, wlien she heard his horse upon the stones, 
Unclasping flung the casement back, and look'd 
Down on his helm, from which her sleeve had gone. 
And Lancelot knew the little clinking sound : 
And she by tact of love was well aware 
That Lancelot knew that she was looking at him. 
And yet he glanced not up, nor waved his hand, 
Nor bade fiirewell, but sadly rode away. 
This was the one discourtesy that he used. 

So in her tower alone the maiden pat : 
His very shield was gone: only the case. 
Her own poor work, her empty labor, left. 
But still she heard him, still his picture form'd 
And grew between her and the pictured wall. 
Then came her father, saying in low tones 
"Have comfort," whom she greeted quietly. 
Then came her brethren saying, " Peace to thee. 
Sweet sister," whom she answer'd with all calm. 
But when they left her to herself again. 
Death, like a friend's voice from a distant field 
Approaching thro' the darkness, called ; the owls 
Wailing had power upon her, and she mixt 
Her faibies with the sallow-rifted glooms 
Of evening, and the moanings of the wind. 

And in those days she made a little song. 
And call'd her song "The Song of Love and Death," 
And sang it: sweetly could she make and sing. 

"Sweet is true love, tho' given in vain, in vain; 
And sweet is death who puts an end to pain : 
I know not which is sweeter, no, not I. 

" Love, art thou sweet? then bitter death must be : 
Love, thou art bitter ; sweet is death to me. 
O Love, if death be sweeter, let me die. 



ELAINE. 



17.") 



" Sweet Love, that seems not made to fade away, 
Sweet death, that seems to make lis loveless clay, 
I know not which is sweeter, no, not I. 

" I fain would follow love, if that could be ; 
I needs must follow death, who calls for me ; 
Call and I follow, I follow ! let me die." 

High with the last line scaled her voice, and this. 
All iu a fiery dawning wild with wind 
That shook her tower, the brothers heard, and thought 
With shuddering, " Hark the Phantom of the house 
That ever shrieks before a death," and call'd 
The father, and all three in hurry and fear 
Ran to her, and lo ! the blood-red light of dawn 
Flared ou her face, she shrilling " Let me die !" 

As when we dwell upon a word we know 
Repeating, till the word we know so well 
Becomes a wonder and we know not why. 
So dwelt the father on her face and thought 
"Is this Elaine?" till back the maiden fell, 
Then gave a languid hand to each, and lay, 
Speaking a still good-morrow with her eyes. 
At last she said, " Syvfeet brothers, yesternight 
I seem'd a curious little maid again. 
As happy as when we dwelt among the woods, 
And when you used to take me with the flood 
Up the great river in the boatman's boat. 
Only you would not pass beyond the cape 
That has the poplar on it: there you fist 
Your limit, oft returning with the tide. 
And yet I cried because you would not pass 
Beyond it, and far up the shining flood 
Until we found the palace of the king. 
And yet you would not; but this night I dream'd 
That I was all alone upon the flood, 
And then I said, "Now shall I have my will:" 
And there I woke, but still the wish remaiu'd. 
So let me hence that I may pass at last ~- 
Beyond the poplar and far up the flood, 
Until I find the palace of the king. 
There will I enter iu among them all. 
And no man there will dare to mock at me ; 
But there the fine Gawain will wonder at me, 
And there the great Sir Lancelot muse at me ; 
Gawain, who bade a thousand farewells to me, 
Lancelot, who coldly went nor bade me one: 
And there the King will know me and my Tove, 
And there the Queen herself will pity me. 
And all the gentle court will welcome me. 
And after my long voyage I shall rest !" 

"Peace," said her father, "O my child, you seem 
Light-headed, far what force is yours to go. 
So far, being sick? and wherefore would you look 
On this proud fellow again, who scorns us all ?" 

Then the rough Torre began to heave and move, 
And bluster into stormy sobs and say, 
"I never loved him: an I meet with him, 
I care not howsoever great he be. 
Then will I strike at him and strike him down. 
Give me good fortune, I will strike him dead, 
For this discomfort he hath done the house." 

To which the gentle sister made reply, 
"Fret not yourself, dear brother, nor be wroth. 
Seeing it is no more Sir Lancelot's fault ' 
Not to love me, than it is mine to love 
Him of all men who seems to me the highest."' 

"Highest?" the Father answer'd, echoing "high- 
est." 
(He meant to break the passion in her.) " Nay, 
Daughter, I know not what you call the highest ; 
But this I know, for all the people know it. 
He loves the Queeu, and in an open shame: 



And she returns his love in open shame. 
If this be high, what is it to be low ?" 

Then spake the lily maid of Astolat: 
"Sweet father, all too faint and sick am I 
For anger: these are slanders: never yet 
Was noble man but made ignoble talk, 
■^e makes no friend who never made a foe. 
But now it is my glory to have loved 
One peerless, without stain : so let me pass. 
My lather, howsoe'er I seem to you, 
Not all unhappy, having loved God's best 
And greatest, tho' my love had no return : 
Yet, seeing you desire your child to live. 
Thanks, but you work against your own desire ; 
For if I could believe the things you say 
I should but die the sooner : wherefore cease. 
Sweet father, and bid call the ghostly man 
Hither, and let me shrive me clean, and die." 

So when the ghostly man had come and gone, 
She with a £;ice, bright as for sin forgiven. 
Besought Lavaine to write as she devised 
A letter, word for word; and when he agk^i 
"Is it for Lancelot, is it for my dear lord? 
Then will I bear it gladly;" she replied, 
"For Lancelot and the Queen and all the world, 
But I myself must bear it." Then he wrote 
The letter she devised ; which being wtLL 
And folded, " O sweet father, tender and true. 
Deny me not," she said— " you never yet 
Denied my fancies — this, however strange. 
My latesj^^ lay the letter In my hand 
A little ere I die; and close the hand 
Upon itV I shall guard it even in death. 
And when the heat is gone from out my heart. 
Then take the little bed on which I died 
For Lancelot's love, and deck it like the Queen's 
For richness, and me also like the Queeu 
In all I have of rich, and lay me ou it. 
And let there be prepared a chariot-bier 
To take me to the river, and a barge 
Be ready on the river, clothed in black. 
I go in state to court, to meet the Queen. 
There surely I shall speak for mine own self, 
Aud none of you can speak for me so well. 
And therefore let our dumb old man alone 
Go with me, he can steer aud row, aud he 
Will guide me to that palace, to the doors." 

She ceased : her father promised ; whereupon 
She grew so cheerful that they de^m'd her death 
Was rather in the fantasy than the blood. 
But ten slow mornings past, and on the eleventh 
Her father laid the letter in her hand. 
And closed the hand upon it, and she died. 
So that day there was dole iu Astolat. 

But when the next sun brake from underground, 
Tbeu^ those two brethren slowly with bent braws. - 
Accompanying, the sad chariot-bier 
Past like a shadow thro' the field, that shone 
Full-summer, to that sti'eam whereon the barge, 
Eall'd all its length in blackest samite, lay. 
There sat the life long creature of the hou.se. 
Loyal, the dumb old servitor, on deck. 
Winking his eyes, and twisted all his face. 
So those two brethren from the chariot took 
And on the black decks laid her iu her bed. 
Set in her hand a lily, o'er her h;jng 
The silken case with braided blazouings, 
Aud kiss'd her quiet brows, and saying to her, 
"Sister, farewell forever," aud again, 
"Farewell, sw eet s ister," parted all in tears. 
Then rose the dumb old servitor, and the dead 
Steer'd by the dumb went upward with the flood — 
In her right hand the lily, in her left 
The letter— all her bright hair streaming down — 



176 



ELAINE. 



And all the coverlid was cloth of gold 
Drawn to her waist, and she lierself in white 
All but her face, and that clear-featured face 
Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead 
But fast asleep, and lay as^tho' she smiled. 

That day Sir Lancelot at the palace craved 
Audience of Guinevere, to give at last 
The price of half a realm, his costly gift, 
Hard-won and hardly won with bruise and blow. 
With deaths of others, and almost his own. 
The uine-years-fought-for diamonds: for he saw 
One of her house, and sent him to the Queen 
Bearing his wish, whereto the Queen agreed 
With such and so unmoved a majesty ^ 

She might have seem'd her statue, but that he. 
Low-drooping till he wellnigh kiss'd her feet 
For loyal awe, saw with a sidelong eye 
The shadow of a piece of pointed lace, 
In the Queen's shadow, vibrate on the walls. 
And parted, laughing in his courtly heart. 

All in an oriel on the summer side, 
Vine-clad, of Arthur's palace toward the stream. 
They met, and Lancelot kneeling utter'd, " Queen, 
Lady, my liege, in whom I have my joy. 
Take, what I had not won except for you, 
These jewels, and make me happy, making them 
An armlet for the roundest arm on earth. 
Or necklace for a neck to which the swan's 
Is tawnier than her cygnet's : these are words : 
Your beauty is your beauty, and I sin 
In speaking, yet O grant my worship of it 
Words, as we grant grief tears. Such sin in words' 
Perchance we both can pardon : but, ray Queen, 
I hear of rumors flying thro' yoixr court. 
Our bond, as not the bond of man and wife, 
Should have in it an absoluter trust 
To make up that defect : let rumors be : 
When did not rumors fly? these, as I trust 
That you trust me in your own nobleness, 
I may not well believe that you believe." 

While thus he spoke, half turned away, the Queen 
Brake from the vast oriel-embowering vine 
Leaf after leaf, and tore, and cast them off, 
Till all the place whereon she stood was green ; 
Then, when he ceased, in one cold passive hand 
Eeceived at once and laid aside the gems 
There on a table near her, and replied : 

"It may be, I am quicker of belief 
Than you believe me, Lancelot of_the Lake. 
Our bond is not the bond of man and wife. 
This good is in it, whatsoe'er of ill. 
It can be broken easier. I for you 
This many a year have done despite and wrong 
To one whom ever in my heart of hearts 
I did acknowledge nobler. What are these? 
Diamonds for me! they had been thrice their worth 
Being your gift, had you not lost your own. 
\ To loyal hearts the value of aU gifts 
Must vary as the giver's. > Not for me ! 
For her ! for your new fancy. Only this 
Grant me, I pray you : have your joys apart. 
I doubt not that however changed, yon keep 
So much of what is graceful : and myself 
Would shun to break those bounds of courtesy 
In which as Arthur's queen I move and rule : 
So caniiot speak njy mind. Ati end to this ! 
A strange one ! yet I take it with Amen. 
So pray you, add my diamonds to her pearls ; 
Deck her with these -, tell her, she shines me down : 
An armlet for an arm to which the Queen's 
Is haggard, or a necklace for a neck 
O as much fairer — as a faith once fair 
Was richer than these diarii'onds — hers not mine — 
Nay, by the mother of our Lord himself, 



Or hers or mine, mine now to work my will — 
She shall not have them." 

Saying which she seized. 
And, thro' the casement standing wide for heat. 
Flung them, and down they flash'd, and smote the 

stream. 
Then from the smitten surface flash'd as it were. 
Diamonds to meet them, and they past away. 
Then while Sir Lancelot leant, in half disgust 
At love, life, all things, on the window ledge. 
Close underneath his eyes, and right across 
Where these had fallen, slowly past the barge i 
Whereon the lily maid of Astolat / , 

Lay smiling, like a star in blackest night. . -' ' ■ 



But the wild Queen, who saw not, burst away 



To weep and wail in secret ; and the barge 

On to the palace-doorway sliding, paused. 

There two stood arm'd, and kept the door ; to whom, 

All up the marble stair, tier over tier. 

Were added mouths that gaped, and eyes that ask'd 

"What is it?" but that oarsman's haggard face, 

As hard and still as is the face that meu 

Shape to their fancy's eye from brolieu rocks 

On some cliflF-side, appa ll'd them, and they said, 

" He is enchanted, caunoTspeak — and she, 

Look how she sleeps — the Fairy Queen, sajair! 

Yea, but how pale ! what are they? flesh and blood? 

Or come to take the King to fairy land? 

For some do hold our Arthur cannot die. 

But that he passes into fairy land." 

While thus they babbled of the King, the King 
Came girt with knights : then turn'd the tongneless 

man 

From the half-face to the full eye, and rose 

And pointed to the damsel, and the doors. 

So Arthur bade the meek Sir Percivale 

And pure Sir Galahad to uplift the maid ; 

And reverently they bore her into hall. 

Then came the fine Gawain and wonder'd at her. 

And Lancelot later came and mused at her, 

At last the Queen herself and pitied her: 

But Arthur spied the letter in her hand, 

Stoopt, took, brake seal, and read it ; this was all : 

"Most noble lord, Sir Lancelot of the Lake, 
I, sometimes call'd the mai3 of Astolat, 
Come, for you left me taking no farewell. 
Hither, to take my last farewell of you. 
I loved you, and my love had no return, 
And therefore my true love has been my death. ■ 
And therefore to our lady Guinevere, 
And to all other ladies, I make moan. 
Pray for my soul, and yield me burial. 
Pray for my soul, thou too. Sir Lancelot, 
As thou art a knight peerless." 

Thus he read, 
And ever in the reading lords and dames 
Wept, looking often from his face who read 
To hers which lay so silent, and at times. 
So touch'd were they, half-thinking that her lips, 
Who had devised the letter, moved again. 

Then freely spoke Sir Lancelot to them all : 
" My lord liege Arthur, and all ye that hear. 
Know that for this most gentle maiden's death 
Right heavy am I; for good she was and true. 
But loved me with a love beyond all love 
In women, whomsoever I have known. 
Yet to be loved makes not to love again ;| 
Not at my years, however it hold in youth. 
I swear by truth and knighthood that I gave 
No cause, not willingly, for such a love : 
To this I call my friends in testimony, 
Her brethren, and her father, who himself 
Besought me to be plain and blunt, and use, 
To break her passion, some discourtesy 



GUINEVERE. 



177 



Against my nature: what I could, I did. 

I left her and I bade her no farewell. 

Tljo' had I dreamt the damsel would have died, 

I might have put my ^its to some rough use, 

And help'd her from herself." 

— -^ Then said the Queen 

(Sea was her wrath, yet working after storm), 
"Yon might at least have done her so much grace. 
Fair lord, as would have help'd her from her death." 
He raised his head, their eyes met and hers fell, 
He adding, 

"Queen, she would not be content 
Save that I wedded her, which could not be. 
Then might she follow me thro' the world, she ask'd ; 
It could not be. I told hef^hat her love ----- 

Was but the flash of youth, would darken down 
To rise hereafter in a stiller flame 
Toward one more worthy of her — then would I, 
More specially were he, she wedded, poor. 
Estate them with large land and territory 
In mine own realm beyond the narrow seas. 
To keep them in all joyance : more than this 
I could not ; this she would not, and she died." 

He pausing, Arthur answer'd, "O my knight. 
It will be to your worship, as my knight. 
And mine, as head of all our Table Round, 
To see that she be buried worshipfully." 

So toward that shrine which then in all the realm 
Was richest, Arthur leading, slowly went 
The marshall'd order of their Table Round, 
And Lancelot sad beyond his wont, to see 
The maiden buried, not as one unknown. 
Nor meanly, but with gorgeous obsequies. 
And mass, and rolling music, like a Queen. 
And when the knights had laid her comely head 
Low in the dust of half-forgotten kings. 
Then Arthur spake among them, "Let her tomb 
Be costly, and her image thereupon. 
And let the shield of Lancelot at her feet 
Be carven, and her lily in her hand. 
And let the story of her dolorous voyage 
For all true hearts be blazon'd on her tomb 
In letters gold and azure !" which was wrought 
Thereafter ; but when now the lords and dames 
And people, from the high door streaming, brake 
Disorderly, as homeward each, the Queen, 
Who mark'd Sir Lancelot where he moved apart. 
Drew near, and sigh'd in passing "Lancelot, 
Forgive me ; mine was jealousy in love." 
He answer'd with his eyes upon the ground, 
"That is love's curse ; pass on, my Queen, forgiven." 
But Arthur who beheld his cloudy brows 
Approach'd him, and with full aftection flung 
One arm about his neck, and spake and said : 

"Lancelot, my Lancelot, thou in whom I have 
Most joy and most afliance, for I know 
What thou hast been in battle by my side, 
And many a time have watch'd thee at the tilt 
Strike down the lusty and long-practised knight, 
And let the younger and unskill'd go by 
To win his honor and to make his name. 
And loved thy courtesies and thee, a man 
Made to be loved ; — but now I would to God, 
For the wild people say wild things of thee. 
Thou couldst have loved this maiden, shaped, it 

seems. 
By God for thee alone, and from her face, 
If one may judge the living by the dead. 
Delicately pure and marvellously fair. 
Who might have brought thee, now a lonely man 
Wifeless and heirless, noble issue, sous 
Born to the glory of thy name and fame, 
My knight, the great Sir Lancelot of the Lake." 

Then answer'd Lancelot, "Fair she was, my King, 
Pare, as you ever wish your knights to be. 
12 



To doubt her fairness were to want an eye, 

To doubt her pureness were to want a heart, 

Yea, to be loved, if what is worthy love 

Could bind him, but free love will not be bound." 

"Free love, so bound, were freest," said the King. 
"Let love be free; free love is for the best: 
And, after heaven, on our dull side of death, 
What should be best, if not so pure a love 
Clothed in so pure a loveliness ? yet thee 
She fail'd to bind, tbo' being, as I think. 
Unbound as yet, and gentle, as I know." 

And Lancelot answer'd nothing, but he went, 
And at the iurunniug of a little brook 
Sat by the river in a cove and waleh'd 
The high reed wave, and lifted up his eyes 
And saw the barge that brought her moving down, 
Far-oflf, a blot upon the stream, and said 
Low in himself, "Ah simple heart and sweet. 
You loved me, damsel, surely with a love 
Far tenderer than my Queen's. Pray for thy soul ? 
Ay, that will I. Farewell too— now at last — 
Farewell, fair, lily- ' Jealousy in love ?' 
Not rather dead love's harsh Jieir, jealous pride? 
Queen, if I grant the jealousy as of love. 
May not your crescent fear for name and fame 
Speak, as it waxes, of a love that wanes ? 
Why did the King dwell on my name to me ? 
Mine own name shames me, seeming a reproach, 
Lancelot, whom the Lady of the lake 
Stole from his mother — as the story runs — 
She chanted snatches of mysterious song 
Heard on the Winding waters, eve and morn 
She kiss'd me sayirig thou art fair, my child, 
As a feiiig's son, and often m her arms 
She bare me, pacing on the dusky mere. 
Would she had drown'd me in it, whej^e'er it be ! 
For what am I? what profits me my name 
Of greatest knight ? I fought for it, and have it : 
Pleasure to have it, none ; to lose it, pain : 
Now grown a part of me : but what use in it ? 
To make men worse by making my sin known ? 
Or sin seem less, the sinner seeming great ? 
Alas for Arthur's greatest knight, a man 
Not after Arthur's heart ! I needs must break 
These bonds that so defame me: not without 
She wills it: would I, if she will'd it? nay. 
Who knows? but if I would not, then may God, 
I pray him, send a sudden Angel down 
To seize me by the hair and bear me far. 
And fling me deep in that forgotten mere. 
Among the tumbled fragments of the hills." 

So groan'd Sir Lancelot in remorseful pain, 
Not knowing he should die a holy man. 



GUINEVERE, 

Qtteen Guineveke had fled the court, and sat 
There in the holy house at Almesbury 
Weeping, none with her save a little maid, 
A novice : one low light betwixt them burn'd 
Blurr'd by the creeping mist, for all abroad, 
Beneath a moon unseen albeit at full. 
The white mist, like a face-cloth to the face. 
Clung to the dead earth, and the laud was still. 

For hither had she fled, her cause of flight 
Sir Modred ; he the nearest to the Kipg, 
His nephew, ever like a subtle beast 
Lay couchant with his eyes upon the throne, 
Ready to spring, waiting a chance: for this, 
He chill'd the popular praises of the King, 
With silent smiles of slow disparagement; 



178 



GUINEVERE. 



Aud tamper'd with the Lords of the White Horse, 
Heathen, the brood by Hengist left ; aud sought 
To make disruption in the Table Eound 
Of Arthur, and to splinter it into feuds 
Serving his traitorous end; and all his aims 
Were sharpen'd by strong hate for Lancelot. 

For thus it chanced one morn when all the court, 
Green-suited, but with plumes that mock'd the May, 
Had been, their wont, a-maying and return'd, 
That Modred still in green, all ear and eye, 
Climb'd to the high top of the garden wall 
To spy some secret scandal if he might, 
And saw the Queen, who sat betwixt her best 
Enid, and lissome Vivien, of her court 
The wiliest and the worst ; aud more than this 
He saw not, for Sir Lancelot passing by >= 

Spied where he couch'd, aud as the gardener's hand 
Picks from the colewort a green caterpillar. 
So from the high wall and the flowering grove 
Of grasses Lancelot uJuck^d him by the heel, 
And cast him as a worm upon the way ; 
But when he knew the Prince tho' marr'd with dust, 
He, reverencing king's blood in a bad man, 
Made such excuses as he might, aud these 
Full knightly without scorn ; for in those days 
No knight of Arthur's noblest dealt in scorn ; 
But, if a man were halt or hunch'd, in him 
By those whom- God had made full-limb'd and tall. 
Scorn was allow'd as part of his defect, 
And he was answer'd softly by the King 
And all his Table. So Sir Lancelot holp 
To raise the Prince, who rising twice or thrice 
Full sharply smote his knees, and smiled, and went : 
But, ever after, the small violence done 
Rankled in him and ruffled all his heart, 
As the sharp wind that ruffles all day long 
A little bitter pool about a stone 
On the bare coast. 

But when Sir Lancelot told 
This matter to the Queen, at first she laugh'd 
Lightly, to think of Modred's dusty fall, ~ '^ 
Then shuddgr'd, as the village wife who cries 
"I shudder, some one steps across my grave;" 
Then laugh'd again, but faintlier, for iud'eed 
She half-foresaw that he, the subtle beast. 
Would track her guilt until he found, and hers 
Would be forevermore a name of scorn. 
Henceforward rarely could she front in Hall, 
Or elsewhere, Modred's narrow fox^ face, «» 
Heart-hiding smile, and gray persistent eye : 
Henceforward too, the Powers that tend the soul, 
To help it from the death that caunot die, 
And save it even in extremes, began 
To vex and plague her. Many a time for hours, 
Beside the placid breathings of the King, 
In the dead night, grim faces came and went 
Before her, or a vague spiritual fear — 
Like to some doubtful noise of creaking doors. 
Heard by the watcher in a haunted house, 
That keeps the rust oi murder on the walls- 
Held her awake ; or ii she slept, she dream'd 
An awful dream; for then she seera'd to stand 
On some vast plain before a setting sun. 
And from the sun there swiftly made at her 
A ghastly something, and its shadow flew 
Before her, till it touch'd her, aud she turn'd— 
When lo ! her own, that broadening from her feet, 
And blackening, swallow'd all the land, and in it 
Far cities burnt, and \nth a cr3^ she woke. 
And all this trouble did not pass but grew; 
Till ev'n the clear face of the guileless Kiug, 
And trustful courtesies of household life, 
Became her bane ; and at the last she said, 
" O Lancelot, get thee hence to thine own land, 
For if thou tarry we shall meet again, 
And if we meet again some evil chance 
Will make the smouldering scandal break and blaze 



Before the people, and our lord the King." 
And Lancelot ever promised, but remain'd, 
And still they met and met. Again she said, 
" O Lancelot, if thou love me get thee hence," 
And then they were agreed upon a night 
(When the good King should not be there) to meet 
And part forever. Passion-pale they met 
And greeted: hands in hands, and eye to eye. 
Low on the border of her couch they sat 
Stammering and staring ; it was their last hour, 
A madness of farewells. Aud Modred brought 
His creatures to the basement of the tower 
For testimony; and crying with full voice, 
"Traitor, come out, ye are trapt at last," aroused 
Lancelot, who rushing outward lion-like 
Leapt on him, and huij'd him headlong, and he fell 
^tUSh'd, and his creaUires took and bare him off' 
And all was still: then shfe, "The end is come 
And I am shamed forever ;" and he said, 
" Mine be the shame ; mine was the sin ; but rise, 
And fly to my strong castle overseas ; 
There will I hide thee, till my life shall end, 
There hold thee with my life agaiust the world." 
She answer'd, " Lancelot, wilt thou hold me so? 
Nay friend, for we have taken our farewells. 
Would God, that thou couldst hide me from my- 
self! 
Mine is the shame, for I was wife, and thou 
Unwedded : yet rise now, and let us fly. 
For I will draw me into sanctuary. 
And bide my doom." So Lancelot got her horse, 
Set her thereon, and mounted on his own, 
And then they rode to the divided way, 
There kiss'd, and parted weeping; for he past, 
Love-loyal to the least wish of the Queen, 
Back to his land; but she to Almesbury 
Fled all night long by glimmering waste and weald, 
And heard the Spirits of the waste and weald 
Moan as she fled, or thought she heard them moan ; 
And in herself she moan'd, "Too late, too late!" 
Till in the cold wind that foreruns the morn, 
A blot in heaven, the Raven, flying high, 
Croak'd, aud she thought, " He spies a field of death ; 
For now the heathen of the Northern Sea, 
Lured by the crimes aud frailties of the court, 
Begin to slay the folk, and spoil the land." ' .- 

And when she came to Almesbury she spake 
There to the nuns, and said, " Mine enemies , 
Pursue me, but, O peaceful Sisterhood, 
Receive, and yield me sanctuary, nor ask 
Her name, to whom ye yield it, till her time 
To tell you:" and her beauty, grace, and power 
Wrought as a charm upon them, and they spared 
To ask it. 

So the stately Queen abode 
For many a week, unknown, among the nuns ; 
Nor with them mix'd, nor told her name, nor sought. 
Wrapt in her grief, for housel or for shrift, 
But communed only with the little maid. 
Who pleased her with a babbling heedlessness 
Which often lured her from herself ; but now. 
This night, a rumor wildly blown about 
Came, that Sir Modred had usurp'd the realm. 
And leagued him with the heathen, while the King 
Was waging war on Lancelot: then she thought, 
"With what a hate the people and the Kiug 
Must hate me," and tJftw'd down upon her hands 
Silent, until the little maid, who brook'd 
No silence, brake it, uttering " Late ! so late ! 
What hour, iNvonder, now?" aud when she drew 
No answer, by aud by began to hum 
An air the nuns had taught her ; " Late so late !" 
Which when she heard, the Queen look'd up, and 

said, 
"O maiden, if indeed you list to sing. 
Sing, and unbind my heart that I may weep." 
Whereat full willingly sang the little maid. 



GUINEVERE. 



179 



"Late, late, so late ! and dark the night and chill ! 
Late, late, so late 1 but we can enter still. 
Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now. 

"No light had we: for that we do repent; 
And learning this, the bridegroom will relent. 
Too late, too late 1 ye cannot enter now. 

"No light: so late ! and dark and chill the night ! 
O let us in, that we may find the light ! 
Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now. 

"Have we not heard the bridegroom is so sweet? 

let us in, tho' late, to kiss his feet ! 
No, no, too late ! ye cannot enter now." 

So sang the novice, while, full passionately, 
Her head upon her hands, remembering 
Her thought when first she came, wept the sad Queen. 
Then said the little novice prattling to her : 

"O pray you, noble lady, ^vteep no more ; 
But let my words, the words of one so small. 
Who knowing nothing knows but to obey, 
And if I do not there is penance given — 
Comfort your sorrows ; for they do not flow 
From evil done ; right sure am I of that, 
Who see your tender grace and stateliness. 
But weigh your sorrows with our lord the King's, 
And weighing find them less ; for gone is he 
To wage grim war against Sir Lancelot there. 
Round that strong castle where he holds the Queen ; 
And Modred whom he left in charge of all. 
The traitor — Ah sweet lady, the King's grief 
For his own self, and his own Queen, and realm, 
Must needs be thrice as great as any of ours. 
For me, I thank the saints I am not great. 
For if there ever come a grief to me 

1 cry my cry in silence, and have done: 

None knows it, and my tears have brought me good. 

But even were the griefs of little ones 

As great as those of great ones, yet this grief 

Is added to the griefs the great must bear,N 

That howsoever much they may desire 

Silence, they cannot weep behind a cloud : 

As even here they talk at Alraesbury 

About the good King and his wicked Queen, 

And were I such a King with such a Queen, 

Well might I wish to veil her wickedness. 

But were I such a King, it could not be." "*■' 

Then to her own sad heart mutter'd the Queen, 
" Will the child kill me with her innocent talk ?" 
But openly she answer'd, "Must not I, 
If this false traitor have displaced his lord. 
Grieve with the common grief of all the realm ?" 

"Yea," said the maid, "this is all woman's grief, 
That she is woman, whose disloyal life 
Hath wrought confusion in the Table Round 
Which good King Arthur founded, years ago. 
With signs and miracles and wonders, there 
At Camelot, ere the coming of the Queen." 

Then thought the Queen within herself again, 
"Will the child kill me with her foolish prate?" 
But openly she spake and said to her, 
"O little maid, shut in by nunnery walls, 
What canst thou know of Kings and Tables Round, 
Or what of signs and wonders, but the signs 
And simple miracles of thy nunnery ?" 

To whom the little novice garrulously: 
"Yea, but I know: the laud was full of signs 
And wonders ere the coming of the Queen. 
So said my father, and himself was knight 
Of the great Table — at the founding of it : 
And rode thereto from Lyonnesse, and he said 
That as he rode, an hour or may be twain 



After the sunset, down the coast he heard 
Strange music, and he paused and turning— there. 
All down the lonely coast of Lyonnesse, 
Each with a beacon-star upon his head. 
And with a wild sea-light about his feet, 
He saw them— headland after headland flame 
Far on into the rich heart of the west : 
And in the light the white mermaiden swam, 
And strong man-breasted things stood from the sea. 
And sent a deep sea-voice thro' all the land. 
To which the little elves of chasm and cleft 
Made answer, sounding like a distant horn. 
So said my father— yea and furthermore. 
Next morning, while be past the dim-lit woods, 
Himself beheld three spirits mad with joy 
Come dashing down on a tall wayside flower. 
That shook beneath them, as the thistle shakes 
When three gray linnets wrangle for the seed : 
And still at evenings on before his horse 
The flickering fairy-circle wheel'd and broke 
Flying, and link'd again, and wheel'd and broke 
Flying, for all the land was full of life. 
And when at last he came to Camelot, 
A wreath of airy dancers hand-iu-hand 
Swung round the lighted lantern of the hall ; 
And in the hall itself was such a feast 
As never man had dream'd ; for every knight 
Had whatsoever meat he loug'd for served * 

By hands unseen ; and even as he said 
Down in the cellars merry bloated things 
Shoulder'd the spigot, straddling on the butts 
While the wiue ran: so glad were spirits and men 
Before the coming of the sinful Queen." 

Then spake the Queen, and somewhat bitterly, 
" Were they so glad 1 ill prophets were they all, 
Spirits and men : could none of them foresee. 
Not even thy wise father with his'signs 
And wonders, what has fall'n upon the realm ?" 

To whom the novice garrulously again : 
"Yea, one, a bard: of whom my father said, 
Full many a noble war-song had he sung, 
Ev'n in the presence of an enemy's fleet, 
Between the steep clifi' and the coming wave ; 
And many a mystic lay of life and death 
Had chanted on the smoky mountain-tops. 
When round him bent the spirits of the hills 
With all their dewy hair blown back like flame: ' 
So said my "father— and that night the bard 
Sang Arthur's glorious wars, and sang the King 
As welluigh more than man, and rail'd at those 
Who call'd him the false sou of Gorlois : 
For there was no man knew from whence he came ; 
But after tempest, when the long wave broke 
All down the thundering shores of Bude and Bos, 
There came a day as still as heaven, and then 
They found a naked child upon the sands 
Of dark Dundagil by the Cornish sea; 
And that was Arthur ; and they foster'd him 
Till he by miracle was approven king : 
And that his grave should be a mystery 
From all men, like his birth; and could he find 
A woman in her womanhood as great 
As he was in his manhood, then, he sang. 
The twain together well might change the world. 
But even in the middle of his song 
He falter'd, and his hand fell from the harp, 
And pale he turn'd and reel'd, and would have fall'n, 
But that they stay'd him up ; nor would he tell 
His vision ; but what doubt that he foresaw 
This evil work of Lancelot and the Queen?" 

Then thought the Queen, "Lo! they have set her 
on. 
Our simple-seeming Abbess and her nuns. 
To play upon me," and bow'd her head nor spake. 
Whereat the novice crying, with clasp'd hands. 



GUINEVERE, 




" While he past the dim-lit woods, 
Himself beheld three spirits mad with joy 
Come dashing down on a tall wayside flower." 



Shame on her own garrtility garrnlonsly, 

Said the good nuns vvonld check her gadding tongue 

Full often, "And, sweet lady, if I seem 

To vex an ear too sad to listen to me. 

Unmannerly, with prattling and the tales 

Which my good father told me, check rae too : 

Nor let me shame my father's memory, one 

Of noblest manners, tho' himself would say 

Sir Lancelot had the noblest ; and he died, 

Kill'd in a tilt, come next, five summers back. 

And left me ; but of others who remain. 

And of the two first-famed' for courtesy — 

And pray you check me if I &sk amiss — 

But pray you, which had noblest, while you moved 

Among them, Lancelot or our Lord the King?" 

Then the pale Queen look'd np and nnswer'd her, 
"Sir Lancelot, as became a noble knight, 



Was gracious to all ladies, and the same 
In open battle or the tilting-field 
Forbore his own advantage, and the King 
In open battle or the tilting-field 
Forebore his own advantage, and these two 
Were the most nobly-mannered meu of all ; 
For manners are not idle, but the fruit 
Of loyal nature, and of noble mind." 

"Yea," said the maid, "be manners such fair fruit? 
Then Lancelot's needs must be a thousandfold 
Less noble, being, as all rumor runs, 
The most disloyal friend in all the world." 

To which a mournful answer made the Queen, 
"O closed about by narrowing nunnery-walls, 
Wh&t knowest thou of the world, and all its lights 
And shadows, all the wealth and all the woe ? 



GUINEVERE. 



181 



If ever Lancelot, that most noble knight, 
Were for one hour less noble than himself. 
Pray for him that he scape the doom of lire, 
And weep for her who drew him to his doom." 

" Yea," said the little novice, " I pray for both ; 
But I should all as soon believe that his. 
Sir Lancelot's, were as noble as the King's, 
As I could think, sweet lady, yours would be 
buch as they are, were you the sinful Queen." 

So she, like many another babbler, hurt 
Whom she would soothe, and harm'd where she 

would heal ; 
For here a sudden flush of wrathful heat 
Fired all the pale face of the Queen, who cried, 
" Such as thou art be never maiden more 
Forever! thou their tool, set on to plague 
And play upon, and harry me, petty spy 
And traitress." When that storm of anger brake 
From Guinevere, aghast the maiden rose, 
White as her veil, and stood before the Queen 
As tremulously as foam upon the beach 
Stands in a wind, ready to break and fly, 
And when the Queen had added " Get thee hence!" 
Fled frighted. Then that other left alone 
Sigh'd, and began to gather heart again, 
Saying in herself, " Tlie simple, fearful child 
Meant nothing, but my own too-fearful guilt 
Simpler than any child, betrays itself. 
But help me, heaven, for surely I repent. 
For what is true repentance but in thought— 
Not e'en in inmost thought to think agaiu 
The sins that made the past so pleasant to us: 
And I have sworn never to see him more. 
To see him more." 

And ev'u in saying this. 
Her memory from old habit of tlie mind 
Went slipping back upon the golden days 
lu which she saw him first, when Lancelot came. 
Reputed the best knight and goodliest mau, 
Ambassador, to lead her to his lord 
Arthur, and led her forth, and far ahead 
Of his and her retinne moving, they, _ 

Rapt in sweet thought, or lively, all on love 
And sport and tilts and pleasure, (for the time 
Was maytime, and as yet no sin was dream'd,) 
Rode under groves that look'd a paradise 
Of blossom, over sheets of hyacinth 
That seem'd the heavens upbreaking thro' the earth, 
And on from hill to hill, and every day 
Beheld at noon in some delicious dale 
The silk pavilions of King Arthur raised 
For brief repast or afternoon repose 
By courtiers gone before ; and on again. 
Till yet once more ere set of sun they saw 
The dragon of the great Pendragonship, 
That crown'd the state pavilion of the King, 
Blaze by the rushing brook or sileut well. 

But when the Queen immersed in such a trance, 
And moving thro' the past nnconseionsly, 
Came to that point, when first she saw the King 
Ride toward her from the city, sigh'd to find 
Her journey done, glanced at .him, thought him cold. 
High, self-contain 'd, and passionless, not like him, 
"Not like my Lancelot"— while she brooded thus 
And grew half-guilty in her thoughts again. 
There rode an armed warrior to the doors. 
A murmuring whisper thro' the nunnery ran. 
Then on a sudden a cry, " The King." She sat 
Stiff-stricken, listening ; but when armed feet 
Thro' the long gallery from the outer doors 
Rang coming, prone from off' her seat she fell. 
And grovell'd with her face against the floor: 
There with her milkwhite arms and shadowy hair 
She made her face a darkness from the King: 
And in the darkness heard his armed feet 



Pause by her ; theu came silence, then a voice, 
Monotonous and hollow like a Ghost's 
Denouncing judgment, but tho' changed the King's. 

"Liest thou here so low, the child of one 
I honor'd, happy, dead before thy shame? 
Well is it that no child is born of thee. 
The children born of thee are sword and fire, 
Red ruin, and the breaking up of laws. 
The craft of kindred and the Godless hosts 
Of heathen swarming o'er the Northern Sea. 
Whom I, while yet Sir Lancelot, my right arm. 
The mightiest of my knights abode with me, 
Have everywhere about this land of Christ 
lu twelve great battles ruining overthrown. 
And knowest thou now from whence I come — from 

him, 
Prom waging bitter war with him: and he, 
That did not shun to smite me in worse waj", 
Had yet that grace of courtesy in him left, 
He spared to lift his hand against the King 
Who made him knight: but many a kuiglit was 

slain ; 
And many more, and all his kith and kin 
Clave to him, and abode in his own land. 
And many more when Modred raised revolt, 
Forgetful of their troth and fealty, clave 
To Modred, and a remnant stays with me. 
And of this remnant will I leave a part. 
True men who love me still, for whom I live. 
To guard thee in the wild hour coming on, 
Lest but a hair of this low head be harm'd. 
Fear not : thou Shalt be guarded till my death. 
Howbeit I know, if ancient prophecies 
Have err'd not, that I march to meet my doom. 
Thou hast not made my life so sweet to me, 
That I the King should greatly care to live; 
For thou hast spoilt the purpose of my life. 
Bear with me for the last time while I show, 
Ev'n for thy sake, the sin which thou hast siun'd. 
For when the Roman left us, and their law 
Relax'd its hold upon us, and the ways 
Were fill'd with rapine, here and there a deed 
.Of prowess done redress'd a random wrong. 
But I was first of all the kings who drew 
The knighthood-errant of this realm and all 
The realms together under me, their Head, 
In that fair order of my Table Rouud, 
A glorious company, the flower of men. 
To serve as model for the mighty world, 
And be the fair beginning of a time. 
-I made them lay their hands in mine and swear 
To reverence the King, as if he were 
Their conscience, and their conscience as their King, 
To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, 
To ride abroad redressing human wrongs. 
To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, 
To lead sweet lives in purest chastity, 
To love one maiden only, cleave to her. 
And worship her by years of noble deeds, 
Until they won her ; for indeed I knew 
Of no more subtle master under heaven 
Than is the maiden passion for a maid, 
Not only to keep down the base in man. 
But teach high thought, and amiable words 
And courtliness, and the desire of fame^___,,...--^ 
And love of truth, and all that makes a man.^ 
And all this throve until I wedded thee ! 
Believing "lo mine helpmate, one to feel 
My purpose and rejoicing in my joy." 
Then came thy shameful sin with Lancelot; 
Then came the sin of. Tristram and Isolt; 
Then others, following these my mightiest knight", 
And drawing foul ensample from fair names, 
Siun'd also, till the loathsome opposite 
Of all my heart had destined did obtain. 
And all thro' thee ! so that this life of mine 
I guard as God's high gift from scathe and wrong, 



182 



GUINEVERE. 



Not greatly care to lose; but rather think 

How sad it were for Arthur, should he live, 

To sit once more within his lonely hall, 

And miss the wonted number of ray knights. 

And miss to hear high talk of noble deeds 

As in the golden days before thy sin. 

For which of ns, who might be left, could speak 

Of the pure heart, nor seem to glance at thee ? 

And in thy bowers of Camelot or of Usk 

Thy shadow still would glide from room to room, 

And I should evermore be vext with thee 

In hanging robe or vacant ornament, 

Or ghostly footfall echoing on the stair. 

For think not, tho' thou wouldst not love thy lord, 

Thy lord has wholly lost his love for thee. 

I am not made of so slight elements. 

Yet must I leave thee, woman, to thy shame. 

I hold that man the worst of public foes 

Who either for his own or children's sake, 

To save his blood from scandal, lets the wife 

Whom he knows false, abide and rule the house : 

For being thro' his cowardice allow'd 

Her station, taken everywhere for pure. 

She like a new disease, unknown to men, 

Creeps, no precaution used, among the crowd, 

Makes wicked lightnings of her eyes, and saps 

The fealty of our friends, and stirs the pulse 

With devil's leaps, and poisons half the young. , 

Worst of the worst were that man he that reigns ! 

Better the King's waste hearth and aching heart 

Than thou reseated in thy place of light. 

The mockery of my people, and their bane." 

He paused, and in the pause she crept an inch 
Nearer, and laid her hands about his feet 
Far off a solitary trumpet blew. 
Then waiting by the doors the war-horse neigh'd 
As at a friend's voice, and he spake again : 

"Yet think not that I come to urge thy crimes, 
I did not come to curse thee, Guinevere, 
I, whose vast pity almost makes me die 
To see thee, laying there thy golden head, 
My pride in happier summers, at my feet. 
The wrath which forced my thoughts on that fierce 

law. 
The doom of treason and the flaming death 
(When first I learnt thee hidden here), is past. 
The pang — which while I weigh'd thy heart with one 
Too wholly true to dream untruth iu thee, 
Made my tears burn— is also past, in part. 
And aU is past, the sin is sinn'd, and I, 
Lo ! I forgive thee, as Eternal God 
Forgives: do thou for thine own soul the rest. 
But how to take last leave of all I loved ? 

golden hair, with which I used, to play 
Not knowing 1 O imperial-moulded fonn, 
And beauty such as never woman wore, 
Until it came a kingdom's curse with thee — 

1 cannot touch thy lips, they are not mine, 

But Lancelot's : nay, they never were the King's. 

I cannot take thy hand ; that too is flesh. 

And in the flesh thou hast sinn'd; and mine own 

flesh. 
Here looking down on thine polluted, cries 
'I loathe thee;' yet not less, O Guinevere, 
For I was ever virgin save for thee. 
My love thro' flesh hath wrought into ray life 
So far, that my doom is, I love thee still. 
Let no man dream but that I love thee still. 
Perchance, and so thou purify thy soul, 
And so thou lean on our fair father Christ, 
Hereafter in that world where all are pure 
We two may meet before high God, and thou 
Wilt spring to me, and claim me thine, and know 
I am thine husband— not a smaller soul. 
Nor Lancelot, nor another. Leave me that, 
I charge thee, my last hope. Now must I hence. 



Thro' the thick night I hear the trumpet blow : 
They summon me their King to lead mine hosts 
Far down to that great battle in the west, 
Where I must strike against my sister's sou. 
Leagued with the lords of the White Horse and 

knights 
Once mine, and strike him dead, and meet myself 
Death, or I know not what mysterious doom. 
And thou remaining here wilt learn the event ; 
But hither shall I never come again, 
Never lie by thy side, see thee no more. 
Farewell !" 

And while she grovell'd at his feet. 
She felt the King's breath wander o'er her neck, 
And, iu the darkness o'er her fallen head, 
Perceived the waving of his hands that blest. 

Then, listening till those armed steps were gone. 
Rose the pale Queen, and in her anguish fouutl 
The casement: " Peradventure," so she- thought, 
" If I might see his face, and not be seen." 
And lo, he sat on horseback at the door ! 
And near him the sad nuns with each a light 
Stood, and he gave them charge about the Queen, 
To guard and foster her forevermore. 
And while he spake to these his helm was lower'd. 
To which for crest the golden dragon clung 
Of Britain ; so she did not see the face, 
Which then was as an angel's, but she saw, 
Wet with the mists and smitten by the lights. 
The Dragon of the great Pendragonship 
Blaze, making all the night a steam of fire. 
And even then he turn'd ; and more and more 
The moony vapor rolling round the King, 
Who seem'd the phantom of a Giant in it, 
Enwound him fold by fold, and made him gray 
And grayer, till himself became as mist 
Before her, moving ghostlike to his doom. 

Then she stretch'd out her arms and cried aloud, 
"O Arthur!" there her voice brake suddenly. 
Then — as a stream that spouting from a cliff 
Fails in mid-air, but gathering at the base 
Re-makes itself, and flashes down the vale- 
Went on in passionate utterance. 

"Gone— my lord ! 
Gone thro' my sin to slay and to be slain ! 
And he forgave me, and I could not speak. 
Farewell? J should have auswer'd his farewell. 
His mercy choked me. Gone, my lord the King, 
My own true lord ! how dare I call him mine ? 
The shadow df another cleaves to me. 
And makes me one pollution : he, the King, 
Call'd me polluted: shall I kill myself? 
What help in that? I cannot kill my sin. 
If soul be soul ; nor can I kill my shame ; 
No, nor by living can I live it down. 
The days will grow to weeks, the weeks to months. 
The months will add themselves and make the years. 
The years will roll into the centuries, 
And mine will ever be a name of scorn. 
I must not dwell on that defeat of fame. 
Let the world be ; that is but of the world. 
What else? what hope? I think there was a hope, 
Except he mock'd me when he spake of hope ; 
His hope he call'd it; but he never mocks, 
\For mockery is the fume of little hearts.) 
And blessed be the King, who hath forgiven 
My wickedness to him, and left me hope 
That in mine own heart I can live down sin 
And be his mate hereafter in the heavens 
Before high God. Ah great and gentle lord, 
Who wast, as is the conscience of a saint 
Among his warring senses, to thy knights — 
To whom my false voluptuous pride, that took 
Full easily all impressions from below. 
Would not look up, or half-despised the height 
To which I would not or I could not climb— 



ENOCH ARDEN. 



183 



I thought I conld not breathe in that fine air 

That pure severity of perfect light — 

I wanted warmth and color which I found 

In Lancelot — now I see thee what thou art, 

Thou art the highest and most human too, 

Not Lancelot, nor another. Is there none 

Will tell the King I love him tho' so late? 

Now— ere he goes to the great Battle ? none : 

Myself must tell him in that purer life, 

But now it were too daring. Ah my God, 

What might I not have made of thy fair world, 

Had I but loved thy highest creature here? 

It was my duty to have loved the highest: 

It surely was my profit had I known : 

It would have been my pleasure had I seen. ^ 

pA^e needs must love the highest when we see it,^ 

Not Lancelot, nor another." ' 

Here her hand 
Grasp'd, made her veil her eyes : she look'd and saw 
The novice, weeping, suppliant, and said to her, 
" Yea, little maid, for am / not forgiven ?" 
Then glancing np beheld the holy nuns 
All round her, weeping ; and her heart was loosed 
Within her, and she wept with these and said: 

" Ye know me then, that wicked one, who broke 
The vast design and purpose of the King. 
O shut me round with narrowing nunnery-walls. 



Meek maidens, from the voices crying 'Shame.' 
I must not scorn myself: he loves me still. 
Let no one dream but that he loves me still. 
So let me, if yon do not shudder at me 
Nor shun to call me sister, dwell with you: 
Wear black and white, and be a nun like yon ; 
Fast with your fasts, not feasting with your feasts ; 
Grieve with your griefs, not grieving at your joys. 
But not rejoicing ; mingle with your rites ; 
Pray and be prayed for; lie before your shrines; 
Do each low ofiice of your holy house ; 
Walk your dim cloister, and distribute dole 
To poor sick people, richer in his eyes 
Who ransom'd us, and baler too than I; 
And treat their loathsome hurts and heal mine own ; 
And so wear out in almsdeed and in prayer 
The sombre close of that voluptnous day. 
Which wrought the ruin of my lord the King." 

She said : they took her to themselves ; and she 
Still hoping, fearing " Is it yet too late ?" 
Dwelt with them, till in time their Abbess died. 
Then she, for her good deeds and her pure life. 
And for the power of ministration in her, 
And likewise for the high rank she had borne. 
Was chosen Abbess, there, an Abbess lived 
For three brief years, and there, an Abbess, past 
To where beyond these voices there is peace. 



ENOCH ARDEN. 



Long lines of clifi" breaking have left a chasm ; 
And in the chasm are foam and yellow sands; 
Beyond, red roofs about a narrow wharf 
In cluster ; then a moulder'd church ; and higher 
A long street climbs to 07ie tall-tower'd mill ; 
And high in heaven behind it a gray down 
With Danish barrows ; and a hazel-wood. 
By autumn nutters haunted, flourishes 
Green in a' cuplike hollow of the down. 

Here on this beach a hundred years ago. 
Three children of three houses, Annie Lee, 
The prettiest little damsel in the port. 
And Philip Ray, the miller's only son. 
And Enoch Arden, a rough sailor's lad 
Made orphan by a winter shipwreck, play'd 
Among the waste and lumber of the shore, 
Hard coils of cordage, swarthy fishing-nets. 
Anchors of rusty fluke, and boats up-drawn ; 
And built their castles of dissolving sand 
To watch them overflow'd, or following up 
And flying the white breaker, daily left 
The little footprint daily wash'd away. 

A narrow cave ran in beneath the cliff: 
In this the children play'd at keeping house. 
Enoch was host one day, Philip the next, 
While Annie still was mistress ; but at times 
Enoch would hold possession for a week : 
"This is my house and this my little wife." 
"Mine too," said Philip, "turn and turn about:" 
When, if they quarrell'd, Enoch stronger-made 
Was master: then would Philip, his blue eyes 
All flooded with the helpless WTath of tears. 
Shriek out, "I hate you, Enoch," and at this 
The little wife would weep for company. 
And pray them not to quarrel for her sake. 
And say she would be little wife to both. 

But when the dawn of rosy childhood past. 
And the new warmth of life's ascending sun 



Was felt by either, either fixt his heart 

On that one girl ; and Enoch spoke his love, 

But Philip loved in silence ; and the girl 

Seem'd kinder unto Philip than to him ; 

But she loved Enoch ; tho' she knew it not, 

And would if ask'd deny it. Enoch set 

A purpose evermore before his eyes, 

To hoard all savings to the uttermost. 

To purchase his own boat, and make a home 

For Annie : and so prosper'd that at last 

A luckier or a bolder fisherman, 

A carefuUer in peril, did not breathe 

For leagues along that breaker-beaten coast 

Thau Enoch. Likewise had he served a year 

On board a merchantman, and made himself 

Full sailor; and he thrice had pluckM a life 

From the dread sweep of the down-streaming seas : 

And all men look'd upon him favorably : 

And ere he touch'd his one-and-twentieth May, 

He purchased his own boat, and made a home 

For Annie, neat and nestlike, half-way up 

The narrow street that clamber'd toward the mill. 

Then, on a golden autumn eventide, 
The younger people making holiday. 
With bag and sack and basket, great and small. 
Went nutting to the hazels, Philip stay'd 
(His father lying sick and needing him) 
An hour behind ; but as he climb'd the hill. 
Just where the prone edge of the wood began 
To feather toward the hollow, saw the pair, 
Enoch and Annie, sitting hand-in-hand. 
His large gray eyes and weather-beaten face 
All-kindled by a still and sacred fire. 
That burned as on an altar. Philip look'd. 
And in their eyes and faces read his doom ; 
Then, as their faces drew together, groan'd 
And slipt aside, and like a wonnded life 
Crept down into the hollows of the wood; 
There, while the rest were loud with merry-making. 
Had his dark hour unseen, and rose and past 
Bearing a lifelong hunger in his heart. 



184 



ENOCH AEDEN. 



So these were wed, and merrily rang the bells, 
And merrily ran the years, seven happy years, 
Seven happy years of health and competence. 
And mutual love and honorable toil ; 
With children ; first a daughter. lu him woke, 
With his first babe's first cry, the noble wish 
To save all earnings to the uttermost, 
And give his child a better briugiug-up 
Than his had been, or hers ; a wish renew'd, 
Whea two years after came a boy to be 
The rosy idol of her solitudes, 
While Enoch was abroad on wrathful seas. 
Or often journeying landward ; for in truth 
Enoch's white horse, and Enoch's ocean-spoil 
In ocean-smelling osier, and his face, 
Rough-redden'd with a thousand winter-gales, 
Not only to the market-cross were known, 
But in the leafy lanes behind the down. 
Far as the portal-warding lion-whelp. 
And peacock-yewtree of the lonely Hall, 
Whose Friday fare was Enoch's ministering. 

Then came a change, as all things human change. 
Ten miles to northward of the narrow port 
Open'd a larger haven : thither used 
Enoch at times to go by land or sea; 
And once when there, and clambering on a mast 
In harbor, by mischance he slipt and fell : 
A limb was broken when they lifted him ; 
And while he lay recovering there, his wife 
Bore him another son, a sickly one : 
Another hand crept too across his trade 
Taking her bread and theirs: and on him fell, 
Altho' a grave and staid God-fearing man. 
Yet lying thus inactive, doubt and gloom. 
He seem'd, as in a nightmare of the night. 
To see his children leading evermore 
Low miserable lives of hand-to-mouth. 
And her, he loved, a beggar: then he pray'd 
"Save them from this, whatever comes to me." 
And while he pray'd, the master of that ship 
Enoch had served in, hearing his mischance, 
Came, for he knew the man and valued him. 
Reporting of his vessel China-bound, 
And wanting yet a boatswain. Would he go? 
There yet were many weeks before she sail'd, 
Sail'd from this port. Would Enoch have the place? 
And Enoch all at once assented to it, 
Rejoicing at that answer to his prayer. 

So now that shadow of mischance appear'd 
No graver than-as when some little cloud 
Cuts off the fiery highway of the sun. 
And isles a light in the oflSug : yet the wife — 
When he was gone— the children — what to do? 
Then Enoch lay long-pondering on his plans ; 
To sell the boat — and yet he loved her well — 
How many a rough sea had he weather'd in her ! 
He knew her, as a horseman knows his horse — 
And yet to sell her — then with what she brought 
Buy goods and stores — set Annie forth in trade 
With all that seamen needed or their wives — 
So might she keep the house while he was gone. 
Should he not trade himself out yonder ? go 
This voyage more than once ? yea twice or thrice— 
As oft as needed — last, returning rich. 
Become the master of a larger craft, 
With fuller profits lead an easier life, 
Have all his pretty young ones educated, 
And pass his days in peace among his own. 

Thus Enoch in his heart determined all: 
Then moving homeward came on Annie pale. 
Nursing the sickly babe, her latest-born. 
Forward she started with a happy cry, 
And laid the feeble infant in his arms; 
Whom Enoch took, and handled all his limbs, 
Appraised his weight, and fondled fatherlike. 



But had no heart to break his purposes 
To Annie, till the morrow, when he spoke. 

Then first since Enoch's golden ring had girt 
Her finger, Annie fought against his will : 
Yet not with brawling opposition she, 
But manifold entreaties, many a tear, 
Many a sad kiss by day by night renew'd 
(Sure that all evil would come out of it) 
Besought him, supplicating, if he cared 
For her or his dear children, not to go. 
He not for his own self caring but her. 
Her and her children, let her plead in vain ; 
So grieving held his will, and bore it thro'. 

For Enoch parted with his old sea-friend, 
Bought Annie goods and stores, and set his hand 
To fit their little sti'eetward sitting-room 
With shelf and corner for the goods and stores. 
So all day long till Enoch's last at home. 
Shaking their pretty cabin, hammer and axe. 
Auger and saw, while Annie seem'd to hear 
Her own death-scafi'old rising, shrill'd and rang. 
Till this was ended, and his careful hand, — 
The space was narrow,— having order'd all 
Almost as neat and close as Nature packs 
Her blossom or her seedling, paused ; and he. 
Who needs would work for Annie to the last, 
Ascending tired, heavily slept till morn. 

And Enoch faced this morning of farewell 
Brightly and boldly. All his Annie's fears, 
Save as his Annie's, were a laughter to him. 
Yet Enoch as a brave God-fearing man 
Bow'd himself down, and in that mystery 
Where God-in-man is one with man-in-God, 
Pray'd for a blessing on his wife and babes 
Whatever came to him: and then he said, 
"Annie, this voyage by the grace of God 
Will bring fair weal;her yet to all of us. 
Keep a clean hearth and a clear fire for me. 
For I '11 be back, my girl, before you know it." 
Then lightly rocking baby's cradle, "and he. 
This pretty, puny, weakly little one, — 
Nay — for I love him all the better for it- 
God bless him, he shall sit upon my knees 
And I will tell him tales of foreign parts. 
And make him merry when I come home again. 
Come Annie, come, cheer up before I go." 

Him running on thus hopefully she heard. 
And almost hoped herself; but when he turii'd 
The current of his talk to graver things 
In sailor fashion roughly sermonizing 
On providence and trust in Heaven, she heard, 
Heard and not heard him; as the village girl. 
Who sets her pitcher underneath the spring. 
Musing on him that used to fill it for her. 
Hears and not hears, and lets it overflow. 

At length she spoke, " O Enoch, you are wise ; 
And yet for all your wisdom well know I 
That I shall look upon your face no more." 

"Well then," said Enoch, "I shall look on your." 
Annie, the ship I sail in passes here 
(He named the day) ; get you a seaman's glass, 
Spy out my face, and laugh at all your fears." 

But when the last of those last moments came, 
"Annie, my girl, cheer up, be comforted. 
Look to the babes, and till I come again. 
Keep everything shipshape, for I must go. 
And fear no more for me ; or if you fear 
Cast all your cares on God ; that anchor holds. 
Is He not yonder in those uttermost 
Parts of the morning ? if I flee to these 



ENOCH ARDEN. 



185 



Can I go from Him? and the sea is His, 
Tlie sea is His : He made it." 

Enoch rose, 
Cast Ms strong arms about his drooping wife, 
And Isiss'd his wonder-stricken little ones; 
But for the third, the sickly one, who slept 
After a night of feverous wakefulness. 
When Annie would have raised him Enoch said, 
'^Wake him not; let him sleep; how should the 

child 
Remember this ?" and kiss'd him in his cot, 
But Annie from her baby's forehead dipt 
A tiny curl, and gave it: this he kept 
Thro' all his future; but now hastily caught 
His bundle, waved his hand, and went his way. 

She, when the day that Enoch mention'd came, 
Borrow'd a glass, but all in vain : perhaps 
She could not fix the glass to suit her eye ; 
Perhaps her eye was dim, hand tremulous ; 
She saw him not: and while he stood on deck 
Waving, the moment and the vessel past. 

Ev'n to the last dip of the vanishing sail 
She watch'd it, and departed weeping for him ; 
Then, tho' she mourn 'd his absence as his grave, 
Set her sad will no less to chime with his, 
But throve not in her trade, not being bred 
To barter, nor compensating the want 
By shrewdness, neither capable of lies, 
Nor asking overmuch and taking less. 
And still foreboding " What would Enoch say ?" 
For more than once, in days of difficulty 
Aud pressure, had she sold her wares for less 
Than what she gave in buying what she sold: 
She fail'd and sadden'd knovi'ing it; and thus. 
Expectant of that news which never came, 
Gain'd for her o^vn a scanty sustenance. 
And lived a life of silent melancholy. 

Now the third child was sickly born and grew 
Yet sicklier, tho' the mother cared for it 
With all a mothers care : nevertheless, 
Whether her business often call'd her from it, 
Or thro' the want of what it needed most. 
Or means to pay the voice who best could tell 
What most it needed — howsoe'er it was. 
After a lingering,— ere she was aware, — 
Like the caged bird escaping suddenly. 
The little innocent soul flitted away. 

In that same week when Annie buried it, 
Philip's true heart, which htmger'd for her peace 
(Since Enoch left he had not look'd upon her), 
Smote him, as having kept aloof so long. 
"Surely," said Philip, "I may see her now, 
May be some little comfort ;" therefore went. 
Past thro' the solitary room in front. 
Paused for a moment at an inner door. 
Then struck it thrice, and, uo one opening, 
Euter'd ; but Annie, seated with her grief. 
Fresh from the burial of her little one. 
Cared not to look on any human face. 
But turn'd her own toward the wall and wept. 
Then Philip standing up said falteringly, 
"Annie, I came to ask a favor of you." 

He spoke; the passion in her moan'd reply, 
"Favor from one so sad aud so forlorn 
As I am!" half abash'd him; yet unask'd. 
His bashfuluess and tenderness at war. 
He set himself beside her, saying to her : 

" I came to speak to you of what he wish'd, 
Enoch, your husband: I have ever said 
You chose the best among us— a strong man: 
For where he fist his heart he set his hand 



To do the thing he will'd, and bore it thro'. 

And wherefore did he go this weary way. 

And leave you lonely? not to see the world — 

For pleasure ? — nay, but for the wherewithal 

To give his babes a better bringing-up 

Than his had been, or yours- that was his wish. 

And if he come again, vext will he be 

To find the precious morning hours were lost. 

And it would vex him even in his grave, 

If he could know his babes were running wild 

Like colts about the waste. So, Annie, now— 

Have ve not known each other all our lives? 

I do beseech you by the love you bear 

Him and his children not to say me nay — 

For, if you will, when Enoch comes again 

Why then he shall repay me — if you will, 

Annie— for I am rich aud well-to-do. 

Now let me put the boy aud girl to school: 

This is the favor that I came to ask." 

Then Annie with her brows against the wall 
Auswer'd, "I cannot look you in the face; 
I seem so foolish and so broken down ; 
When you came in my sorrow broke me down ; 
Aud now I think your kindness breaks me down : 
But Enoch lives; that is borne in on me; 
He wiU repay you: money can be repaid; • 

Not kindness such as yours." 

And Philip ask'd 
"Then you wiU let me, Annie?" 

There she turn'd, 
She rose, and fixt her swimming eyes upon him, 
Aud dwelt a moment on his kindly face. 
Then calling down a blessing on his head 
Caught at his hand and wrung it passionately. 
And past into the little garth beyond. 
So lifted up iu spirit he moved away. 

Then Philip put the boy and girl to school, 
Aud bought them needful books, and every way. 
Like one who does his duty by his own. 
Made himself theirs ; aud tho' for Annie's sake. 
Fearing the lazy gossip of the port. 
He oft denied his heart his dearest wish. 
And seldom crost her threshold, yet he sent 
Gifts by the children, garden-herbs aud fruit. 
The late aud early roses from his wall. 
Or conies from the down, and now and then, 
With some pretext of fineuess iu the meal 
To save the offence of charitable, flour 
From his tall mill that whistled on the waste. 

But Philip did not fathom Annie's mind: 
Scarce could the woman when he came upon Uer, 
Out of full heart and boundless gratitude 
Light on a broken word to thank him with. 
But Philip was her children's all-in-all; 
From distant corners of the street they ran 
To greet his hearty welcome heartily; 
Lords of his house and of his mill were they ; 
Worried his passive ear with petty wrongs 
Or pleasures, hung upon him, play'd with him 
And call'd him Father Philip. Philip gain'd 
As Enoch lost; for Enoch seem'd to them 
Uncertain as a vision or a dream, 
Faiut as a figure seen iu early dawn 
Down at the far end of an avenue. 
Going we know not where; aud so ten years. 
Since Enoch left his hearth and native land, 
Fled forward, and no news of Enoch cam»e. 

It chanced one evening Annie's children long'd 
To go with others, nutting to the wood. 
And Annie would go with them ; then they begg'd 
For Father Philip (as they him call'd) too: 
Him, like the working-bee in blossom-dust, 



186 



ENOCH ARDEN. 



Blanch'd with his mill, they found ; aud saying to 

him, 
"Come with us, Father Philip," he denied; 
But when the children pluck'd at hira to go, 
He laugh'd, aud yielded readily to their wish, 
For was not Auuie with them? and they went. 

But after scaling half the weary down, 
Just where the prone edge of the wood began 
To feather toward the hollow, all her force 
Fail'd her; and sighing "Let me rest "she said: 
So Philip rested with her well-content; 
While all the younger ones with jubilant cries 
Broke from their elders, and tumultuously 
Down thro' the whitening hazels made a plunge 
To the bottom, and dispersed, and bent or broke 
The lithe reluctant boughs to tear away 
Their tawny clusters, crying to each other 
And calling, here and there, about the wood. 

But Philip sitting at her side forgot 
Her presence, and remember'd one dark hour 
Here in this wood, when like a wounded life 
He crept into the shadow : at last he said. 
Lifting his honest forehead, "Listen, Annie, 
How merry they are down yonder in the wood." 
" Tired, Annie ?" for she did not speak a word. 
" Tired ?" but her face had fall'n upon her bands ; 
At which, as with a kind of anger in him, 
"The ship was lost," he said, "the ship was lost! 
No more of that ! why should you kill yourself 
And make them orphans quite?" And Annie said, 
"I thought not of it : but — I know not why — 
Their voices make me feel so solitary." 

Then Philip coming somewhat closer spoke. 
" Annie, there is a thing upon my mind, 
And it has been upon my mind so long. 
That tho' I know not when it first came there, 
I know that it will out at last. O Annie, 
It is beyond all hope, against all chance, 
That he who left you ten long years ago 
Should still be living ; well then — let me speak : 
I grieve to see you poor and wanting help: 
1 cannot help you as I wish to do 
Unless — they say that women are so quick — 
Perhaps you know what I would have you know— 
I wish you for my wife. I fain would prove 
A father to your children : I do think 
They love me as a father : I am sure 
That I love them as if they were mine own ; 
And I believe, if you were fast my wife, 
That after all these sad uncertain years, 
We might be still as happy as God grants 
To any of His creatures. Think upon it : 
For I am well-to-do — no kin, no care. 
No burthen, save my care for you and yours ; 
And we have knowna each other all our lives, 
And I have loved you longer than you know." 

Then answer'd Annie ; tenderly she spoke : 
"You have been as God's good angel in our house. 
God bless yon for it, God reward you for it, 
Philip, with something happier than myself. 
Can one love twice? can you be ever loved 
As Enoch was ? what is it that you ask ?" 
"I am content," he answer'd, "to be loved 
A little after Enoch." " O," she cried. 
Scared as it were, "dear Philip, wait a while: 
If Enoch comes— but Enoch will not come — 
Yet wait a year, a year is not so long : 
Surely I shall be wiser in ai year: 

wait a little !" Philip sadly said, 

" Annie, as I have waited all my life 

1 well may wait a little." " Nay," she cried, 

•' I am bound : you have my promise — in a year : 
Will you not bide your year as I bide mine ?" 
And Philip answer'd, "I will bide my year." 



Here both were mute, till Philip glancing up 
Beheld the dead flame of the fallen day 
Pass from the Danish barrow overhead ; 
Then fearing night and chill for Annie rose. 
And sent his voice beneath him thro' the wood. 
Up came the children laden -with their spoil ; 
Then all descended to the port, and there 
At Annie's door he paused and gave his hand, 
Saying gently, "Annie, when I spoke to you. 
That was your hour of weakness. I was wrong. 
I am always bound to you, but you are free." 
Then Annie weeping answer'd, " I am bound." 

She spoke ; and in one moment as it were, 
While yet she went about her household ways, 
Ev'n as she dwelt upon his latest words. 
That he had loved her longer than she knew. 
That autumn into autumn flash'd again. 
And there he stood ouce more before her face. 
Claiming her promifee. "Is it a year?" she ask'd. 
" Yes, if the nuts," he said, " be ripe again : 
Come out and see." But she— she put him off— 
So much to look to — such a change— a month — 
Give her a month — she knew that she was bouud— 
A month — no more. Then Philip with his eyes 
Full of that lifelong hunger, and his voice 
Shaking a little like a drunkard's hand, 
"Take your own time, Annie, take your own time." 
And Annie could have wept for pity of him ; 
And yet she held him on delayingly 
With many a scarce-believable excuse. 
Trying his truth and his long-sufferance, 
Till half- another year had slipt away. 

By this the lazy gossips of the port, 
Abhorrent of a calculation crost. 
Began to chafe as at a personal wrong. 
Some thought that Philip did but trifle with her ; 
Some that she but held off to draw him on ; 
Aud others laugh'd at her and Philip too. 
As simple folk that knew not their own minds; 
And one, in whom all evil fancies clung 
Like serpent eggs together, laughingly 
Would hint at worse in either. Her own son 
Was silent, tho' he often look'd his wish ; 
But evermore the daughter prest upon her 
To wed the man so dear to all of them 
And lift the household out of poverty; 
And Philip's rosy face contracting grew 
Careworn and wan ; and all these things fell on her 
Sharp as reproach. 

At last one night it chanced 
That Annie could not sleep, but earnestly 
Pray'd for a sign " my Enoch, is he gone ?" 
Then compass'd round by the blind wall of night 
Brook'd not the expectant terror of her heart, 
Started from bed, and struck herself a light, 
Then desperately seized the holy Book, 
Suddenly set it wide to find a sign. 
Suddenly put her finger on the text, 
"Under a palmtree." That was nothing to her: 
No meaning there : she closed the book and slept : 
When lo ! her Enoch sitting on a height. 
Under a palmtree, over him the Sun : 
" He is gone," she thought, "he is happy, he is sing- 
ing 
Hosanna in the highest: yonder shines 
The Sun of Righteousness, and these be palms 
Whereof the happy people strowing cried 
' Hosanna in the highest !' " Here she woke. 
Resolved, sent for him and said wildly to him, 
" There is no reason why we should not wed." 
"Then for God's sake," he auswer'd, "both our 

sakes, 
So yon will wed me, let it be at once." 

So these were wed and merrily rang the bells. 
Merrily rang the bells and they were wed. 



ENOCH ARDEN. 



187 



But uever merrily beat Anuie's heart. 
A footstep seem'd to fall beside her path, 
She knew not whence ; a whisper on her ear, 
She knew not what ; nor loved she to be left 
Alone at home, nor ventured out alone. 
What ail'd her then, that ere she enter'd, often 
Her hand dwelt lingeringly on the latch, 
Fearing to enter : Philip thought he knew : 
Such doubts and fears were common to her state. 
Being with child : but when her child was born, 
Then her new child was as herself renew'd. 
Then the new mother came about her heart. 
Then her good Philip was her all-in-all, 
And that mysterious instinct wholly died. 

And where was Enoch ? Prosperously sail'd 
The ship " Good Fortune," tho' at setting forth 
The Biscay, roughly ridging eastward, shook 
And almost overwhelm'd her, yet uuvext 
She slipt across the summer of the world, 
Then after a long tumble about the Cape 
And frequent interchange of foul and fair. 
She passing thro' the summer world again, 
The breath of Heaven came continually 
And sent her sweetly by the golden isles, 
Till silent in her oriental haven. 

There Enoch traded for himself, and bought 
Quaint monsters for the market o.f those times, 
A gilded dragon, also, for the babes. 

Less lucky her home-voyage : at first indeed 
Thro' many a fair sea-circle, day by day, 
Scarce-rocking, her full-busted figure-head 
Stared o'er the ripple feathering from her bows : 
Then follow'd calms, and then winds variable. 
Then bafiling, a long course of them ; and last 
Storm, such as drove her under moonless heavens 
Till hard npon the cry of " breakers" came 
The crash of ruin, and the loss of all 
But Enoch and two others. Half the night, 
Buoy'd upon floating tackle and broken spars, 
These drifted, stranding on an isle at morn . 
Rich, but the loneliest in a lonely sea. 

No want was there of human sustenance, 
Soft fruitage, mighty nuts and nourishing roots ; 
Nor save for pity was it hard to take 
The helpless life so wild that it was tame. 
There iu a seaward-gazing mountain-gorge 
They built, and thatch'd with leaves of palm, a hut. 
Half hut, half native cavern. So the three, 
Set in this Eden of all plenteousness, 
Dwelt with eternal summer, ill-content. 

For one, the youngest, hardly more than boy, 
Hurt in that night of sudden ruin and wreck. 
Lay lingering out a three-years' death-in-life. 
They could not leave him. After he was gone, 
The two remaining found a fallen stem ; 
And Enoch's comrade, careless of himself. 
Fire-hollowing this in Indian fashion, fell 
Sun-stricken, and that other lived alone. 
In those two deaths he read God's warning " wait." 

The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns 
And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven, 
The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes. 
The lightning flash of insect and of bird, 
The lustre of the long convolvuluses 
That coil'd around the stately stems, and ran 
Ev'n to the limit of the land, the glows 
And glories of the broad belt of the world, 
All these he saw; but what he fain had seen 
He could not see, the kindly human face. 
Nor ever hear a kindly voice, but heard 
The myriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl, 
The league-long roller thundering on the reef. 



The moving whisper of huge trees that branch'd 

And blossom'd in the zenith, or the sweep 

Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave, 

As do<Vn the shore he ranged, or all day long 

Sat often in the seaward-gazing gorge, 

A shipwreck'd sailor, waiting for a sail : 

No sail from day to day, but every day 

The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts 

Among the palms and ferns and precipices ; 

The blaze upon the waters to the east ; 

The blaze upon his island overhead ; 

The blaze upon the waters to the west; 

Then the great stars that globed themselves iu 

Heaven, 
The hoUower-bellowing ocean, and again 
The scarlet shafts of sunrise— but no sail. 

There, often as he watch 'd or seem'd to watch. 
So still, the golden lizard on him paused, 
A phantom made of many phantoms moved 
Before him haunting him, or he himself 
Moved haunting people, things and places, known 
Far in a darker isle beyond the line ; 
The babes, their babble, Annie, the small house, 
The climbing street, the mill, the leafy lanes. 
The peacock-yewtree and the lonely Hall, 
The horse he drove, the boat he sold, the chill 
November dawns and dewy-glooming downs, 
The gentle shower, the smell of dying leaves. 
And the low moan of leaden-color'd seas. 

Once likewise, in the ringing of his ears, 
Tho' faintly, merrily — far and far away — 
He heard the pealing of his parish bells ; 
Then, tho' he knew not wherefore, started up 
Shuddering, and when the beauteous hateful isle 
Return'd upon him, had not his poor heart 
Spoken with That, which being everywhere 
Lets none, who speaks with Him, seem all alone, 
Surely the man had died of solitude. 

Thus over Enoch's early-silvering head 
The sunny and rainy seasons came and went 
Year after year. His hopes to see his oAvn, 
And pace the sacred old familiar fields. 
Not yet had perish'd, when his lonely doom 
Came suddenly to an end. Another ship 
(She wanted water) blown by baflling winds 
Like the Good Fortune, from her destined course, 
Stay'd by this- isle, not knowing where she lay; 
For since the mate had seen at early dawn 
Across a break on the mist-wreathen isle 
The silent water slipping from the hills. 
They sent a crew that landing burst away 
In search of stream or fount, and fiird the shores 
With clamor. Downward from his mountain gorge 
Stept the long-haired long-bearded solitary. 
Brown, looking hardly human, strangely clad, 
Muttering and mumbling, idiotlike it seem'd. 
With inarticulate rage, and making signs 
They knew not what : and yet he led the way 
To where the rivulets of sweet water ran ; 
And ever as he mingled with the crew. 
And heard them talking, his long-bounden tongue 
Was loosen'd, till he made them understand ; 
Whom, when their casks were fill'd they took aboard : 
And there the tale he utter'd brokenly. 
Scarce credited at first but more and more. 
Amazed and melted all who listen'd to it : 
And clothes they gave him and free passage home: 
But oft he work'd among the rest and shook 
His isolation from him. None of these 
Came from his county, or could answer him, 
If question'd, aught of what he cared to know. 
And dull the voyage was with long delays. 
The vessel scarce sea-worthy ; but evermore 
His fancy fled before the lazy wind 
Returning, till beneath a clouded moon 



188 



ENOCH AEDEN. 



He like a lover dowu thro' all his blood 
Drew in the dewy meadowy morning-breath 
Of England, blown across her ghostly wall : 
And that same morning officers and men 
Levied a kindly tax upon themselves, 
Pitying the lonely man, and gave him it: 
Then moving up the coast they landed him, 
Ev'n in that harbor whence he sail'd before. 

There Enoch spoke no word to any one, 
But homeward, — home, — what home ? had he a home ? 
His home he walk'd. Bright was that afternoon, 
Sunny but chill; till drawn thro' either chasm, 
Where either haven open'd on the deeps, 
Roll'd a sea-haze and whelm'd the world in gray : 
Cut off the length of highway on before, 
And left but narrow breadth to left and right 
Of wither'd holt or tilth or pasturage. 
On the nigh-naked tree the Robin piped 
Disconsolate, and thro' the dripping haze 
The dead weight of the dead leaf bore it dowu: 
•Thicker the drizzle grew, deeper the gloom ; 
Last, as it seem'd, a great mist-blotted light 
Flared on him, and he came upon the place. 

Then down the long street having slowly stolen. 
His heart foreshadowing all calamity, 
His eyes upon the stones, he reach'd the home 
Where Annie lived and loved him, and his babes 
In those far-off seven happy years were born ; 
But finding neither light nor murmur there 
(A bill of sale gleam'd thro' the drizzle) crept 
Still downward thinking " dead or dead to me 1" 

Down to the pool and narrow wharf he went, 
Seeking a tavern which of old he knew, 
A front of timber-crost antiquity, 
So propt, worm-eaten, ruinously old. 
He thought it must have gone ; but he was gone 
Who kept it : and his widow, Miriam Lane, 
With daily-dwindling profits held the house ; 
A haunt of brawling seamen once, but now 
Stiller, with yet a bed for wandering men. 
There Enoch rested silent many days. 

But Miriam Lane was good and garrulous, 
Nor let him be, but often breaking in, 
Told him, with other annals of the port. 
Not knowing — Enoch was\«o brown, so bow'd, 
So broken— all the story of his house. 
His baby's death, her growing poverty, 
How Philip put her little ones to school, 
And kept ihem in it, his long wooing her, 
Her slow consent, and marriage, and the birth 
Of Philip's child: and o'er his countenance 
No shadow past, nor motion ; any one, 
Regarding, well had deem'd he felt the tale 
Less than the teller: only when she closed, 
" Enoch, poor man, was cast away and lost," 
He, shaking his gray head pathetically. 
Repeated muttering ''Cast away and lost;" 
Again in deeper inward whispers " Lost !" 

But Enoch yearn 'd to see her face again; 
"If I might look on her sweet face again 
And know that she is happy." So the thought 
Haunted and harass'd him, and drove him forth 
At evening when the dull November day 
Was growing duller twilight, to the hill. 
There he sat down gazing on all below : 
There did a thousand memories roll upon him. 
Unspeakable for sadness. By and by 
The ruddy square of comfortable light, 
Far-blazing from the rear of Philip's house. 
Allured him, as the beacon-blaze allures 
The bird of passage, till he madly strikes 
Against it, and beats out hie weary life. 



For Philip's dwelling fronted on the street, 
The latest house to landward; but behind. 
With one small gate that open'd on the waste, 
Flourish'd a little garden square and wall'd : 
And in it throve an ancient evergreen, 
A yewtree, and all round it ran a walk 
Of shingle, and a walk divided it : 
But Enoch shunn'd the middle walk and stole 
Up by the wall, behind the yew ; and thence 
That which he better might have shunn'd, if griefs 
Like his have worse or better, Enoch saw. 

For cups and silver on the bnrnish'd board 
Sparkled and shone ; so genial was the hearth ; 
And on the right hand of the hearth he saw 
Philip, the slighted suitor of old times, 
Stout, rosy, with his babe across his knees ; 
And o'er her second father stoopt a girl, 
A later but a loftier Annie Lee, 
Pair-hair'd and tall, and from her lifted hand 
Dangled a length of ribbon and a ring 
To tempt the babe, who rear'd his creasy arms, 
Caught at and ever miss'd it, and they laugh'd : 
And on the left hand of the hearth he saw 
The mother glancing often toward her babe, 
But turning now and then to speak with him. 
Her son, who stood beside her tall and strong. 
And saying that which pleased him, for he smiled. 

Now when the dead man come to life beheld 
His wife his wife no more, and saw the babe 
Hers, yet not his, upon the father's knee. 
And all the warmth, the peace, the happiness, 
And his own children tall and beautiful, 
And him, that other, reigning in his place, 
Lord of his rights and of his children's love, — 
Then he, tho' Miriam Lane had told him all, 
Because things seen are mightier than things heard, 
Stagger'd and shook, holding the branch, and fear'd 
To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry, 
Which in one moment, like the blast of doom, 
Would shatter all the happiness of the hearth. 

He therefore turning softly like a thief. 
Lest the harsh shingle should grate underfoot. 
And feeling all along the garden-wall, 
Lest he should swoon and tumble and be found, 
Crept to the gate, and open'd it, and closed, 
As lightly as a sick man's chamber-door. 
Behind him, and came out upon the waste. 

And there he would have knelt, but that his knees 
Were feeble, so that falling prone he dug 
His fingers into the wet earth, ahd pray'd. 

" Too hard to bear ! why did they take me thence ? 
O God Almighty, blessed Saviour, Thou 
That didst uphold me on my lonely isle. 
Uphold me, Father, in my loneliness 
A little longer ! aid me, give me strength 
Not to tell her, never to let her know. 
Help me not to break in upon her peace. 
My children too ! must I not speak to these ? 
They know me not. I should betray myself. 
Never : no father's kiss for me, — the girl 
So like her mother, and the boy, my son." 

There speech and thought and nature fail'd a little, 
And he lay tranced : but when he rose and paced 
Back toward his solitary home again. 
All down the long and narrow street he went 
Beating it in upon his weary brain, 
As tho' it were the burthen of a song, 
" Not to tell her, never to let her know." 

He was not all unhappy. His resolve 
Upbore him, and firm faith, and evermore 
Prayer from a living source within the will, 



ENOCH ARDEN. 



189 



And beating up thro' all the bitter world, 
Like fountains of sweet water in the sea, 
Kept him a living soul. "This miller's wife," 
He said to Miriam, "that you told me of, 
Has she no fear that her first husband lives?" 
"Ay, ay, poor soul," said Miriam, "fear enow! 
If you could tell her you had seen him dead. 
Why, that would be her comfort :" and he thought, 
"After the Lord has call'd me she shall know, 
I wait His time," and Enoch set himself. 
Scorning an alms, to work whereby to live. 
Almost to all things could he turn his hand. 
Cooper he was and carpeutei', and wrought 
To make the boatmen fishing-nets, or help'd 
At lading and unlading the tall barks. 
That brought the stinted commerce of those days : 
Thus earn'd a scanty living for himself: 
Yet since he did but labor for himself. 
Work without hope, there was not life in it 
Wheret)y the man could live; and as the year 
Roll'd itself round again to meet the day 
When Euoch had return'd, a languor came 
Upon him, gentle sickness, gradually 
Weakening the man, till he could do no more, 
But kept the holise, his chair, and last his bed. 
And Euoch bore his weakness cheerfully. 
For sure no gladlier does the stranded wreck 
See thro' the gray skirts of a lifting squall 
The boat that bears the hope of life approach 
To save the life despair'd of, than he saw 
Death dawning on him, and the close of all. 

For thro' that dawning gleam'd a kindlier hope 
On Enoch thinking, "After I am gone. 
Then may she learn I loved her to the last." 
He call'd aloud for Miriam Lane and said, 
"Woman, I have a secret,— only swear, 
Before I tell you — swear upon the book 
Not to reveal it, till you see me dead." 
" Dead," clamor'd the good woman, "hear him talk ! 
I warrant, man, that we shall bring you round." 
"Swear," added Enoch sternly, "on the book." 
And on the book, half-frighted, Miriam swore. 
Then Enoch rolling his gray eyes upon her, 
"Did you know Enoch Arden of this town?" 
"Know him?" she said, "I knew him far away. 
Ay, ay, I mind him coming down the street ; 
Held his head high, and cared for no man, he." 
Slowly and sadly Enoch answer'd her; 
"His head is low, and no man cares for him. 
I think I have not three days more to live; 
I am the man." At which the woman gave 
A half-incredulous, half-hysterical cry. 
"You Arden, you! nay, — sure he was a foot 
Higher than you be." Enoch said again, 
"My God has bow'd me down to what I am; 
My grief and solitude have broken me ; 
Nevertheless, know you that I am he 
Who married — bnt that name has twice been 

changed— 
I married her who married Philip Ray. 



Sit, listen." Then he told her of his voyage. 
His wreck, his lonely life, his coming back, 
His gazing in on Annie, his resolve. 
And how he kept it. As the woman heard, 
Fast flow'd the current of her easy tears. 
While in her heart she yearn'd incessantly 
To rush abroad all round the little haven. 
Proclaiming Euoch Arden and his woes ; 
But awed and promise-bounden she forbore. 
Saying only, " See your bairns before you go ! 
Eb, let me fetch 'em, Arden," and arose 
Eager to bring them down, for Enoch hung 
A moment on her words, but then replied: 

"Woman, disturb me not now at the last, 
But let me hold my purpose till I die. 
Sit down again ; mark me and understand, 
While I have power to speak. I charge you now, 
When you shall see her, tell her that I died 
Blessing her, praying for her, loving her; 
Save for the bar between us, loving her 
As when she laid her head beside my own. 
And tell my daughter Annie, whom I saw 
So like her mother, that my latest breath 
Was spent in blessing her and praying for her. 
And tell my son that I died blessing him. 
And say to Philip that I blest him too; 
He never meant us anything but good. 
But if my children care to see me dead. 
Who hardly knew me living, let them come, 
I am their father; but she must not come, 
For my dead face would vex her after-life. 
And now there is but one of all my blood. 
Who will eml)race me in the world-to-be : 
This hair is his : she cut it off and gave it. 
And I have borne it with me all these years, 
^Aud thought to bear it with me to my grave; 
But now my mind is changed, for I shall see hira, 
My babe in bliss: wherefore when I am gone. 
Take, give her this, for it may comfort her ; 
It will moreover be a token to her, 
That I am he." 

He ceased; and Miriam Lane 
Made such a voluble answer promising all. 
That once again he roll'd his eyes upon her 
Repeating all he wish'd, and once agaiu 
She prpmised. 

Then the third night after this, 
While Enoch slumber'd motionless and pale, 
And Miriam watch'd and dozed at intervals. 
There came so loud a calling of the sea. 
That all the houses in the haven rang. 
He woke, he rose, he spread his arms abroad 
Crying with a loud voice "A sail! a sail! 
I am saved ;" and bo fell back and spoke no more. 

So past the strong heroic soul away. 
And when they buried him the little port 
Had seldom seen a costlier funeral. 




190 



AYLMER'S FIELD. 



ADDITIONAL POEMS. 



AYLMER'S FIELD. 

1793. 
Ddst are our frames; and, gilded dust, our pride 
Looks only for a moment whole and sound; 
Like that long-buried body of the king, 
Found lying with his urns and ornaments, 
Which at a touch of light, an air of heaven, 
Slipt into ashes and was found no more. 

Here is a story which in rougher shape 
Came from a grizzled cripple, whom I saw 
Sunning himself in a waste tield alone- 
Old, and a mine of memories— who had served, 
Long since, a bygone Rector of the place, 
And been himself a part of what he told. 

Sib Aylmer Aylmer, that almighty man, 
The county God— in whose capacious hall, 
Hung with a hundred shields, the family tree 
Sprang from the midriff of a prostrate king— 
Whose blazing wyvern weathercock'd the spire. 
Stood from his walls and wing'd his entry-gates 
And swang besides on many a windy sign — 
Whose eyes from under a pyramidal head 
Saw from his windows nothing save his own— 
What lovelier of his own had he than her, 
His only child, his Edith, whom he loved 
As heiress and not heir regretfully ? 
But "he that marries her marries her name" 
This flat somewhat soothed himself and wife, 
His wife a fiided beauty of the Baths, 
Insipid as the queen upon a card ; 
Her all of thought and bearing l»e\rdly more 
Than his own shadow in a sickly sun. 

A land of hops and poppy-mingled corn, 
Little about it stirring save a brook ! 
A sleepy land where under the same wheel 
The same old rut would deepen year by year; 
Where almost all the village had one name ; 
Where Aylmer follow'd Aylmer at the Hall 
And Averill Averill at the Rectory 
Thrice over: so that Rectory and Hall, 
Bound in an immemorial intimacy, 
Were open to each other: tho' to dream 
That Love could bind them closer well had made 
The hoar hair of the Baronet bristle up 
With horror, worse than had he heard his priest 
Preach an inverted scripture, sons of men 
Daughters of God ; so sleepy was the land. 

And might not Averill, had he will'd it so. 
Somewhere beneath his own low range of roofs, 
Have also set his many-shielded tree ? 
There was an Aylraer-Averill marriaae once. 
When the red rose was redder than itself. 
And York's white rose as red as Lancaster's, 
With wounded peace which each had prick'd to 

death. 
"Not proven," Averill said, or laughingly, 
"Some other race of Averills "— prov'n or no, 
What cared he? what, if other or the same? 
He lean'd not on his fathers but himself. 
But Leolin, his brother, living oft 



W^ith Averill, and a year or two before 
Caird to the bar, but ever call'd away 
By one low voice to one dear neighborhood, 
Would often, in his walks with Edith, claim 
A distant kinship to the gracious blood 
That shook the heart of Edith hearing him. 

Sanguine he was : a but less vivid hue 
Than of that islet in the chestnut-bloom 
Flamed in his cheek ; and eager eyes, that still 
Took joyful note of all things joyful, beam'd 
Beneath a manelike mass of rolling gold, 
Their best and brightest, when they dwelt on hers, 
Edith, whose pensive beauty, perfect else. 
But subject to the season or the mood. 
Shone like a mystic star between the less 
And greater glory varying to and fro. 
We know not wherefore; bounteously made, 
And yet so finely, that a troublous touch 
Thinn'd, or would seem to thin her in a day, 
A joyous to dilate, as toward the light. 
And these had been together from the first. 
Leolin's first nurse was, five years after, hers: 
So much the boy foreran ; but when his date 
Doubled her own, for want of playmates, he * 
(Since Averill was a decade and a half 
His elder, and their parents underground) 
Had tost his ball and flown his kite, and roll'd 
His hoop to pleasure Edith, with her dipt 
Against the rush of the air in the prone swing, 
Made blossom-ball or daisy-chain, arranged 
Her garden, sow'd her name and kept it green 
In living letters, told her fairy-tales, 
Show'd her the fairy footings on the grass. 
The little dells of cowslip, fairy palms. 
The petty marestail forest, fairy pines, 
Or from the tiny pitted target blew 
What look'd a flight of fairy arrows aim'd 
All at one mark, all hitting: make-believes 
For Edith and himself: or else he forged. 
But that was later, boyish histories 
Of battle, bold adventure, dungeon, wreck. 
Flights, terrors, sudden rescues, aud true love 
Crown'd after trial; sketches rude and faint, 
But where a passion yet unborn perhaps 
Lay hidden as the music of the moon 
Sleeps in the plain eggs of the nightingale. 
Aud thus together, save for college-times 
Or Temple-eaten terms, a couple, fair 
As ever painter painted, poet sang, 
Or Heav'n in lavish bounty moulded, grew. 
Aud more and more, the maiden woman-grown. 
He wasted hours with Averill ; there, when first 
The tented winter-field was broken up 
Into that phalanx of the summer spears 
That soon should wear the garland ; there again 
When burr and bine were gather'd ; lastly there 
At Christmas ; ever welcome at the Hall, 
On whose dull sameness his full tide of youth 
Broke with a phosphorescence cheering even 
My lady; and the Baronet yet had laid 
No bar between them : dull aud self-involved. 
Tall and erect, but bending from his height 
With half-allowing smiles for all the world, 
Aud mighty courteous in the main— his pride 



AYLMER'S FIELD. 



191 



Lay deeper than to wear it as his ring — 

He, like an Aylmer in his Aylmerism, 

Would care no more for Leolln's walking with her 

Than for his old Newfoundland's, when they ran 

To loose him at the stables, for he rose 

Twofooted at the limit of his chain. 

Roaring to make a third: and how should Love, 

Whom the cross-lightnings of four chance-met eyes 

Flash into fiery life from nothing, foUow 

Such dear familiarities of dawn ? 

Seldom, but when he does, Master of all. 

So these young hearts not knowing that they loved, 
Not she at least, nor conscious of a bar 
Between them, nor by plight or broken ring 
Bound, but an immemorial intimacy, 
Wander'd at will, but oft accompanied 
By Averill: his, a brother's love, that hung 
With wings of brooding shelter o'er her peace, 
Might have been other, save for Leoliu's— 
Who knows ? but so they wander'd, hour by hour 
Gather'd the blossom that rebloom'd, and drank 
The magic cup that fill'd itself anew. 

A whisper half reveal'd her to herself. 
For out beyond her lodges, where the brook 
Vocal, with here and there a silence, ran 
By sallowy rims, arose the laborers' homes, 
A frequent haunt of Edith, on low knolls 
That dimpling died into each other, huts 
At random scatter'd, each a nest in bloom. 
Her art, her hand, her counsel all had wrought 
About them : here was one that, summer-blanch'd, 
Was parcel-bearded with the traveller's-joy 
In Autumn, parcel ivy-clad ; and here 
The warm-blue breathings of a hidden hearth 
Broke from a bower of vine and honeysuckle : 
One look'd all rosetree, and another wore 
A close-set robe of jasmine sown with stars : 
This had a rosy sea of gillyflowers 
About it; this a milky-way on earth. 
Like visions in the Northern dreamer's heavens, 
A lily-avenue climbing to the doors ; 
One, almost to the martin-haunted eaves 
A summer burial deep in hollyhocks; 
Each, its own charm ; and Edith's everywhere ; 
And Edith ever visitant with him, 
He but less loved than Edith, of her poor : 
For she — so lowly-lovely and so loving. 
Queenly responsive when the loyal hand 
Rose from the clay it work'd in as she past. 
Not sowing hedgerow texts and passing b}'. 
Nor dealing goodly counsel from a height 
That makes the lowest hate it, but a' voice 
Of comfort and an open hand of help, 
A splendid presence flattering the poor roofs 
Revered as theirs, but kindlier than themselves 
To ailing wife or wailing infancy 
Or old bedridden palsy, — was adored; 
He, loved for her and for himself. A grasp 
Having the warmth and muscle of the heart, 
A childly way with children, and a laugh 
Ringing like proven golden coinage true. 
Were no false passport to that easy realm, 
Where once with Leolin at her side the girl, 
Nursing a child, and turning to the warmth 
The tender pink five-beaded baby-soles. 
Heard the good mother softly whisper "Bless, 
God bless 'em ; marriages are made in Heaven." 

A flash of semi-jealousy clear'd it to her. 
My Lady's Indian kinsman unannounced 
With half a score of swarthy faces came. 
His own, tho' keen and bold and soldierly, 
Sear'i by the close ecliptic, was not fair; 
Fairer his talk, a tongue that ruled the hour, 
Tho' seeming boastful : so when first he dash'd 
Into the chronicle of a deedful day, 



Sir Ayhner half forgot his lazy smile 

Of patron "Good! my lady's kinsman! good!" 

My lady with her fingers interlock'd, 

And rotatory thumbs on silken knees, 

Call'd all her vital spirits into each ear 

To listen : unawares they flitted off, 

Busying themselves about the flowerage 

That stood from out a stiflf brocade in which, 

The meteor of a splendid season, she, 

Once with this kinsman, ah so long ago, 

Slept thro' the stately minuet of those days : 

But Edith's eager fancy hurried with him 

Snatch'd thro' the perilous passes of his life : 

Till Leolin ever watchful of her eye 

Hated him with a momentary hate. 

Wife-hunting, as the rumor ran, was he: 

I know not, for he spoke not, only shower'd 

His oriental gifts on every one 

And most on Edith : like a storm he came. 

And shook the house, and like a storm he went. 

Among the gifts he left her (possibly 
He flow'd and ebb'd uncertain, to return 
When others had been tested) there was one, 
A dagger, in rich sheath with jewels on it 
Sprinkled about in gold that branch'd itself 
Fine as ice-ferns on January panes 
Made by a breath. I know not whence at first, 
Nor of what race, the work ; but as he told 
The story, storming a hill-fort of thieves 
He got it; for their captain after fight. 
His comrades having fought their last below, 
Was climbing up the valley; at whom he shot: 
Down from the beetling crag to which he clung 
Tumbled the tawny rascal at his feet. 
This dagger with him, which when now admired 
By Edith whom his pleasure was to please, 
At once the costly Sahib yielded to her. 

And Leolin, coming after he was gone, 
Tost over all her presents petulantly: 
And when she show'd the wealthy scabbard, saying 
" Look what a lovely piece of workmanship !" 
Slight was his answer "WeU — I care not for it:" 
Then playing with the blade he prick'd his hand, 
"A gracious gift to give a lady, this I" 
"But woi;ld it be more gracious," ask'd the girl, 
"Were I to give this gift of his to one 
That is no lady ?" "Gracious? No," said he. 
"Me?— but I cared not for it. O pardon me, 
I seem to be ungraciousness itself." 
"Take it," she added sweetly, "tho' his gift; 
For I am more ungracious ev'u than you, 
I care not for it either;" and he said 
"Why then I love it:" but Sir Aylmer past. 
And neither loved nor liked the thing he heard. 

The next day came a neighbor. Blues and reds 
They talk'd of: blues were sure of it, he thought: 
Then of the latest fox — where started— kill'd 
In such a bottom: "Peter had the brush, 
My Peter, first:" and did Sir Aylmer know 
That great pock-pitten fellow had been caught? 
Then' made his pleasure echo, hand to hand. 
And rolling as it were the substance of it 
Between his palms a moment up and down — 
"The birds were warm, the birds were warm upon 

him ; 
We have him now:" and had Sir Aylmer heard — 
Nay, but he must— the land was ringing of it — 
This blacksmith-border marriage — one they knew — 
Raw from the nursery — who could trust a child? 
That cursed France with her egalities ! 
And did Sir Aylmer (deferentially 
With nearing chair and lower'd accent) think — 
For people talk'd — that it was wholly wise 
To let that handsome fellow Averill walk 
So freely with his daughter? people talk'd — 



192 



AYLMER'S FIELD. 



The boy might get a notion into him ; 

The girl might be entangled ere she knew. 

Sir Aylmer slowly stiflfening spoke: 

"The girl and boy, Sir, know their differences !" 

"Good," said his friend, "but watch!" and he 

"enough. 
More than enough, Sir ! I can guard my own." 
They parted, and Sir Aylmer Aylmer watch'd. 

Pale, for on her the thunders of the house 
Had fallen first, was Edith that same night: 
Pale as the Jephtha's daughter, a rough piece 
Of early rigid color, under which 
Withdrawing by the counter door to that 
Which Leolin open'd, she cast back upon him 
A piteous glance, and vanish'd. He, as one 
Caught in a burst of unexpected storm. 
And pelted with outrageous epithets. 
Turning beheld the Powers of the House 
On either side the hearth, indignant ; her. 
Cooling her false cheek with a feather-fan. 
Him glaring, by his own stale devil spurr'd. 
And, like a beast hard-ridden, breathing hard. 
"Ungenerous, dishonorable, base. 
Presumptuous ! trusted as he was with her, 
The sole succeeder to their wealth, their lands, 
The last remaining pillar of their house, 
The one transmitter of their ancient name, 
Theirchild." "Ourchildl" " Our heiress !" "Ours!" 

for still, 
Like echoes from beyond a hollow, came 
Her sicklier iteration. Last he said 
"Boy, mark me! for your fortunes are to make. 
I swear you shall not make them out of mine. 
Now inasmuch as you have practised on her, 
Perplext her, made her half forget herself. 
Swerve from her duty to herself and us — 
Things in an Aylmer deem'd impossible, 
Far as we track ourselves — I say that this, — 
Else I withdraw favor and countenance 
From you and yours forever — shall you do. 
Sir, when you see her— but you shall not see her — 
No, you shall write, and not to her, but me : 
And you shall say that having spoken with me, 
' And after look'd into yourself, you find 
That you meant nothing— as indeed you know 
That you meant nothing. Such a match as this ! 
Impossible, prodigious !" These were words, 
As meted by his measure of himself. 
Arguing boundless forbearance : after which, 
And Leolin's horror-stricken answer, "I 
So foul a traitor to myself and her. 
Never, O never," for about as long 
As the wind-hover hangs in balance, paused 
Sir Aylmer reddening from the storm within, 
Then broke all bonds of courtesy, and crying 
"Boy, should I find you by my doors again 
My men shall lash you from them like a dog: 
Hence !" with a sudden execration drove 
The footstool from before him, and arose ; 
So, stammering " scoundrel " out of teeth that ground 
As In a dreadful dream, while Leolin still 
Retreated half-aghast, the fierce old man 
Follow'd, and under his own lintel stood 
Storming with lifted hands, a hoary face 
Meet for the reverence of the hearth, but now. 
Beneath a pale and unimpassion'd moon, 
Vext with unworthy madness, and deform'd. 

Slowly and conscious of the rageful eye 
That watch'd him, till he heard the ponderous door 
Close, crashing with long echoes thro' the land, 
Went Leolin ; then, his passions all in flood 
And masters ot his motion, furiously 
Down thro' the bright lawns to his brother's ran. 
And foam'd away his heart at Averill's ear: 
Whom Averill solaced as he might, amazed : 
The man was his, had been his father's friend: 



He must have seen, himself had seen it long ; 

He must have known, himself had known : besides. 

He never yet had set his daughter forth 

Here in the woman-markets of the west. 

Where our Caucasians let themselves be sold. 

Some one, he thought, had slander'd Leolin to him. 

"Brother, for I have loved you more as son 

Than brother, let 'me tell you : I myself— 

What is their pretty saying ? jilted, is it ? 

Jilted I was : I say it for your peace. 

Pain'd, and, as bearing in myself the shame 

The woman should have borne, humiliated, 

I lived for years a stunted sunless life; 

Till after our good parents past away 

Watching your growth, I seem'd again to grow. 

Leolin, I almost sin in envying you : 

The very whitest lamb in all my fold 

Loves you : 1 know her : the worst thought she has 

Is whiter even than her pretty hand: 

She must prove true : for, brother, where two fight 

The strongest wins, and truth and love are strength, 

And you are happy: let her parents be." 

But Leolin cried out the more upon them — 
Insolent, brainless, heartless ! heiress, wealth. 
Their wealth, their heiress ! wealth enough was theirs 
For twenty matches. Were he lord of this. 
Why twenty boys and girls should marry on it. 
And forty blest ones bless him, and himself 
Be wealthy still, ay wealthier. He believed 
This filthy marriage-hindering Mammon made 
The harlot of the cities; nature crost 
Was mother of the foul adulteries 
That saturate soul with body. Name, too ! name. 
Their ancient name ! they might be proud ; its worth 
Was being Edith's. Ah how pale she had look'd 
Darling, to-night ! they must have rated her 
Beyond all tolerance. These old pheasant-lords, 
These partridge-breeders of a thousand years, 
Who had mildew'd in their thousands, doing nothing 
Since Egbert— why, the greater their disgrace ! 
Fall back upon a name ! rest, rot in that I 
Not keex) it noble, make it nobler? fools, 
With such a vantage-ground for nobleness! 
He had known a man, a quintessence of man, 
The life of all— who madly loved— and he. 
Thwarted by one of those old father-fools. 
Had rioted his life out, and made an end. 
He would not do it ! her sweet face and faith 
Held him from that : but he had powers, he knew it: 
Back would he to his studies, make a name, 
Name, fortune too : the world should ring of him 
To shame these mouldy Aylmers in their graves: 
Chancellor, or what is greatest would he be— 
" O brother, I am grieved to iearn your grief — 
Give me my fling, and let me say my say." 

At which, like one that sees his own excess, 
And easily forgives it as his own. 
He laugh'd; and then was mute; but presently 
Wept like a storm: and honest Averill seeing 
How low his brother's mood had fallen, fetch'd 
His richest beeswing from a binn reserved 
For banquets, praised the waning red, and told 
The vintage — when tim Aylmer came of age — 
Then drank and past it: till at length the two, 
Tho' Leolin flamed and fell again, agreed 
That much allowance must be made for men. 
After an angry dream this kindlier glow 
Faded with morning, but his purpose held. 

Yet once by night ag.ain the lovers met, 
A perilous meeting under the tall pines 
That darken'd all the northward of her Hall. 
Him, to her meek and modest bosom prest 
In agony, she promised that no force, 
Persuasion, no, nor death could alter her: 
He, passionately hopefuller, would go. 



AYLMER'S FIELD. 



193 



Labor for his own Editb, and return 

1 u such a sunlight of prosperity 

He should not be rejected. " Write to me ! 

They loved me, and because I love their child 

They hate me : there is war between us, dear, 

Which breaks all bonds but ours ; we must remain 

Sacred to one another." So they talk'd, 

Poor children, for their comfort: the wind blew; 

The rain of heaven, and their own bitter tears, 

Tears, and the careless rain of heaven, mixt 

Upon their faces, as they kisa'd each other 

In darkness, and above them roar'd the pine. 

So Leolin went ; and as we task ourselves 
To learn a language knOwu but smatteringly 
In phrases here and there at random, toil'd 
Mastering the lawless science of our law, 
That codeless myriad of precedent, 
That wilderness of sinf le instances. 
Thro' which a few, by wit or fortune led, 
May beat a pathway out to wealth and fame. 
The jests, that flash'd about the pleader's room. 
Lightning of the hour, the pun, the scurrilous tale, — 
Old scandals buried now seven decades deep 
In other scandals that have lived and died, 
And left the living scandal that shall die — 
Were dead to him already; bent as he was 
To make disproof of scorn, and strong in hopes. 
And prodigal of all brain-labor he, 
Charier of sleep, and wine and exercise, 
Except when for a breathing-while at eve 
ISome niggard fraction of an hour he ran 
Beside the river-bank: and then indeed 
Harder the times were, and the hands of power 
Were bloodier, and the according hearts of men 
Seem'd harder too; but the soft river-breeze, 
Which faun'd the gardens of that rival rose 
Yet fragrant in a heart remembering 
His former talks with Edith, on him breathed 
Far purelier in his rushings to and fro, 
After his books, to flush his blood with air, 
Then to his books again. My lady's cousin, 
Half-sickening of his pensioned afternoon. 
Drove in upon the the student once or twice, 
Ran a Malayan muck against the times, 
Had golden hopes for France and all mankind, 
Answer'd all queried touching those at home 
With a heaved shoitlder and a saucy smile. 
And fain had haled him out into the world, 
And air'd him there : his nearer friend would say, 
" Screw not the cord too sharply lest it snap." 
Then left alone he pluck'd her dagger forth 
From where his worldless heart had kept it warm, 
Kissing his vows upon it like a knight. 
And wrinkled benchers often talk'd of him 
Approvingly, and prophesied his rise: 
For heart, I think, help'd head : her letters too, 
Tho' far between, and coming fitfully 
Like broken music, written as she found 
Or made occasion, being strictly watch'd, 
Charm'd him thro' every labyrinth till he saw 
An end, a hope, a light breaking upon him. 

But they that cast her spirit into flesh, 
Her worldly-wise begetters, plagued themselves 
To sell her, those good parents, for her good. 
Whatever eldest-born of rank or wealth 
Might lie within their compass, him they lured 
Into their net made pleasant by the baits 
Of gold and beauty, wooing him to woo. 
So month by month the noi.?e about their doors, 
And distant blaze of those dull banquets, made 
The nightly warer of their innocent hare 
Falter before he took it. All in vain. 
Sullen, defiant, pitying, wroth, return'd 
Leolin's rejected rivals from their suit 
So often, that the folly taking wings 
Slipt o'er those lazy limits down the wind 
13 



With rumor, and became in other fields 

A mockery to the yeomen over ale, 

And laughter to their lords: but those at home, 

As hunters round a hunted creature draw 

The cordon close and closer toward the death, 

Narrow'd her goings out and comings in; 

Forbade her first the house of Averill, 

Then closed her access to the wealthier farms. 

Last from her own home-circle of the. poor 

They barr'd her: yet she bore it: yet her cheek 

Kept color : wondrous ! but, O mystery ! 

What amulet drew her down to that old oak, 

So old, that twenty years before, a part 

Falling had let appear the brand of John— 

Once grovelike, each huge arm a tree, but now 

The broken base of a black tower, a cave 

Of touchwood, with a single flourishing spray. 

There the manorial lord too curiously 

Raking in that millennial touchwood-dust 

Found for himself a bitter treasure-trove ; 

Burst his own wyvern on the seal, and read 

Writhing a letter from his child, for which 

Came at the moment Leolin's emissary, 

A crippled lad, and coming turn'd to fly, 

But scared with threats of jail and halter gave 

To him that fluster'd his poor parish wits 

The letter which he brought, and swore besides 

To play their go-between as heretofore 

Nor let them know themselves betray'd, and then, 

Soul-stricken at their kindness to him, went 

Hating his own lean heart and miserable. 

Thenceforward oft from out a despot dream 
Panting he woke, and oft as early as dawn 
Aroused the black republic on his elms. 
Sweeping the frothfly from the fescue, brush'd 
Thro" the dim meadow toward his treasure-trove. 
Seized it, took home, and to my lady, who made 
A downward crescent of her minion mouth, 
Listless in all despondence, read ; and tore, 
As if the living passion sj'mbol'd there 
Were living nerves to feel the rent; and burnt, 
Now chafing at his own great self defied, 
Now striking on huge stumbling-blocks of scorn 
In babyisms, and dear diminutives 
Scatter'd all over the vocabulary 
Of such a love as like a chidden babe. 
After much wailing, hush'd itself at last 
Hopeless of answer: then tho' Averill wrote 
And bade him with good heart sustain himself—. 
All would be well— the lover heeded not, 
But passionately restless came and went. 
And rustling once at night about the place, 
There by a keeper shot at, slightly hurt. 
Raging return'd : nor was it well for her 
Kept to the garden now, and grove of pines, 
Watch'd even there : and one was set to watch 
The watcher, and Sir Aylmer watch'd them all. 
Yet bitterer from his readings : once indeed, 
Warm'd with his wines, or taking pride in her, 
She look'd so sweet, he kiss'd her tenderly, 
Not knowing what possess'd him: that one kiss 
Was Leolin's one strong rival upon earth ; 
Seconded, for my lady follow'd suit, 
Seem'd hope's returning rose: and then ensued 
A Martin's summer of his faded love. 
Or ordeal by kindness; after this 
He seldom crost his child without a sneer; 
The mother flow'd in shallower acrimonies : 
Never one kindly smile, one kindly word : 
So that the gentle creature shut from all 
Her charitable use, and face to face 
With twenty months of silence, slowly lost 
Nor greatly cared to lose, her hold on life. 
Last, some low fever ranging round to spy 
The weakness of a people or a house, 
Like flies that haunt a wound, or deer, or men, 
Or almost all that is, hurting the hurt — 



194 



AYLMER'S FIELD. 



Save Christ as we believe him— found the girl 
And flung her down upon a couch of fire, 
Where careless of the household faces near, 
And crying upon the name of Leolin, 
She, and with her the race of Aylmer, past. 

Star to star vibrates light : may soul to soul 
Strike thro' a finer element of her own ? ' 
So,— from afar,— touch as at once ? or why 
That night, that moment, when she named his name, 
Did the keen shriek, " Yes love, yes Edith, yes," 
Shrill, till the comrade of his chambers woke, 
And came upon him half-arisen from sleep. 
With a weird bright eye, sweating and trembling. 
His hair as it were crackling into flames. 
His body half flung forward in pursuit, 
And- his long arms stretch'd as to grasp a flyer : 
Nor knew he wherefore he had made the cry: 
And being much befool'd and idioted 
By the rough amity of the other, sank 
As into sleep again. The second day. 
My lady's Indian kinsman rushing in, 
A breaker of the bitter news from home, 
Found a dead man, a letter edged with death 
Beaide him, and the dagger which himself 
Gave Edith, redden'd with no bandit's blood 
"From Edith" was engraven on the blade. 

Then Averill went and gazed upon his death. 
And when he came again, his flock believed— 
Beholding how the years which are not Time's 
Had blasted him— that many thousand days 
Were dipt by horror from his term of life. 
Yet the sad mother, for the second death 
Scarce touch'd her thro' that nearness of the first, 
And being used to find her pastor texts, 
Sent to the harrow'd brother, praying him 
To speak before the people of her child, 
And flxt the Sabbath. Darkly that day rose : 
Autumn's mock suushine of the faded woods 
Was all the life of it ; for hard on these, 
A breathless burthen of low-folded heavens 
Stifled and chill'd at once : but every roof 
Sent out a listener: many too had known 
Edith among the hamlets round, and since 
The parents' harshness and the hapless loves 
And double death were widely raurmur'd, left 
Their own gray tower, or plain-faced tabernacle. 
To hear him ; all in mourning these, and those 
With blots of it about them, ribbon, glove 
Or kerchief; while the church,— one night, except 
For greenish glimmerings thro' the lancets, — made 
Still paler the pale head of him, who tower'd 
Above them, with his hopes in either grave. 

Long o'er his bent brows linger'd Averill, 
His face magnetic to the hand from which 
Livid he pluck'd it forth, and labor'd thro' 
His brief prayer-prelude, gave the verse "Behold, 
Your house is left unto you desolate !" 
But lapsed into so long a pause again 
As half amazed, half frighted all his flock : 
Then from his height and loneliness of grief 
Bore down in flood, and dash'd his angry heart 
Against the desolations of the world. 

Never since our bad earth became one sea. 
Which rolling o'er the palaces of the proud. 
And all but those who knew the living God — 
Eight that were left to make a purer world — 
When since had flood, lire, earthquake, thunder, 

wrought 
Such waste and havoc as the idolatries, 
Which from the low light of mortality 
Shot up their shadows to the Heaven of Heavens, 
And worshipt their own darkness as the Hisrhest? 
"Gash thyself, priest, and honor thy brute Baiil, 



And to thy worst self sacrifice thyself. 
For with thy worst self hast thou clothed thy God." 
Then came a Lord in no wise like to Baiil. 
The babe shall lead the lion. Surely now 
The wilderness shall blossom as the rose. 
Crown thyself, worm, and worship thine own lusts '.— 
No coarse and blockish God of acreage 
Stands at thy gate for thee to grovel to — 
Thy God is far difi"used in noble groves 
And princely halls, and farms, and flowing lawn«. 
And heaps of living gold that daily grow. 
And title-scrolls and gorgeous heraldries. 
In such a shape dost thou behold thy God. 
Thou wilt not gash thy flesh for him; for t'aiivj 
Fares richly, in fine liuen, not a hair 
Kuffled upon the scarfskiu, even while 
The deathless ruler of thy dying house 
Is wouufled to the death that cannot die ; 
And tho' thou numberest wilh the followers 
Of One who cried "Leave all and follow me." 
Thee therefore with His light about thy feet, 
Thee with His message ringing in thine ears. 
Thee shall thy brother man, the Lord from Heavcu, 
Born of a village girl, carpenter's son. 
Wonderful, Prince of peace, the Mighty God, 
Count the more base idolater of the two ; 
Crueller: as not passing thro' the fire 
Bodies, but souls — thy children's— thro' the smoke. 
The blight of low desires — darkening thine own 
To thine own likeness ; or if one of these. 
Thy better born unhappily from thee. 
Should, as by miracle, grow straight and fair- 
Friends, I was bid to speak of such a one 
By those who most have cause to sorrow for her — 
Fairer than Rachel by the palmy well, 
Fairer than Ruth among the fields of corn. 
Fair as the Angel that said " hail " she seem'd, 
Who entering fill'd the house with sudden light. 
For so mine own was brighten'd : where indeed 
The roof so lowly birt that beam of Heaven 
Dawn'd sometimes thro' the doorway? whose the 

babe 
Too ragged to be fondled on her lap, 
Warm'd at her bosom ? The poor child of shame. 
The common care whom no one cared for, leapt 
To greet her, wasting his forgotten heart. 
As with the mother he had never known, 
In gambols; for her fresh and innocent eyes 
Haid such a star of morning in their blue. 
That all neglected places of the field 
Broke into nature's music when they saw her. 
Low was her voice, but won mysterious way 
Thro' the seal'd ear, to which a louder one 
Was all but silence — free of alms her hand — 
The hand that robed your cottage-walls with flowers 
Has often toil'd to clothe your little ones ; 
How often placed upon the sick man's brow 
Cool'd it, or laid his feverous pillow smooth ! 
Had you one sorrow and she shared it not ? 
One burthen and she would not lighten it? 
One spiritual doubt she did not soothe ? 
Or when some heat of diff'ereuce sparkled out, 
How sweetly would she glide between your wraths 
And steal you from each other ! for she walk'd 
Wearing the light yoke of that Lord of love. 
Who still'd the rolling wave of Galilee ! 
And one — of him I was not bid to speak — 
Was always with her, whom you also knew. 
Him too you loved, for he was worthy love. 
And these had been together from the first; 
They might have been together till the last. 
Friends, this frail bark of ours, when sorely tried. 
May wreck itself without the pilot's guilt, 
Without the captain's knowledge : hope with me. 
Whose shame is that, if he went hence with shame? 
Nor mine the fault, if losing both of these 
I cry to vacant chairs and widow'd walls, 
"My house is left unto me desolate." 



SEA DEEAMS. 



19J; 



While thus he spoke, his hearers wept ; but some, 
Sons of the glebe, with other frowns than those 
That knit themselves for summer shadow, scowl'd 
At their great lord. He, when it seem'd he saw 
No pale sheet-lightnings from afar, but fork'd 
Of the near storm, and aiming at his head, 
Sat anger-charra'd from sorrow, soldier-like, 
Erect: but when the preacher's cadence flow'd 
Softening thro' all the gentle attributes 
Of his lost child, the wile, who watch'd his face. 
Paled at a sudden twitch of his iron mouth ; 
And, "O pray God that he hold up," she thought, 
"Or surely I shall shame myself and him." 

"Nor yours the blame — for who beside your hearths 
Can take her place — if echoing me you cry 
'Our house is left unto us desolate?' 
But thou, O thou that killest, hadst thou known, 
O thou that stouest, hadst thou understood 
The things belonging to thy peace and ours ! 
Is there no prophet but the voice that calls 
Doom upon kings, or in the waste ' Repent ?' 
Is not our own child on the narrow way. 
Who down to those that saunter in the broad 
Cries 'Come up hither,' as a prophet to us? 
Is there no stoning save with flint and rock? 
Yes, as the dead we weep for testify — 
No desolation but by sword and fire ? 
Yes, as your moanings witness, and myself 
Am lonelier, darker, earthlier for my loss. 
Give me your prayers, for he is past your prayers. 
Not past the living fount of pity in Heaven. 
But I that thought myself long-suffering, meek. 
Exceeding 'poor in spirit' — how the words 
Have twisted back upon themselves and mean 
Vileness, we are grown so proud — I wish'd my voice 
A rushing tempest of the wrath of God 
To blow these sacrifices thro' the world — 
Sent like the twelve-divided concubine 
To inflame the tribes ; but there— out yonder— earth 
Lightens from her own central Hell— O there 
The red fruit of an old idolatry — 
The heads of chiefs and princes fall so fast. 
They cling together in the ghastly sack — 
The land all shambles — naked marriages 
Flash from the bridge, and ever-murder'd France, 
By shores that darken with the gathering wolf. 
Runs in a river of blood to the sick sea. 
Is this a time to madden madness then? 
Was this a time for these to flaunt their pride ? 
May Pharaoh's darkness, folds as dense as those 
Which hid the Holiest from the people's eyes 
Ere the great death, shroud this great sin from all : 
Doubtless our narrow world must canvass it; 

rather pray for those and pity them 

Who thro' their own desire accomplish'd bring 
Their own gray hairs with sorrow to the grave — 
Who broke the bond which they desired to break — 
Which else had link'd their race with times to 

come — 
Who wove coarse webs to snare her purity. 
Grossly contriving their dear daughter's good — 
Poor souls, and knew not what they did, but sat 
Ignorant, devising their own daughter's death 
May not that earthly chastisement suffice? 
Have not oitr love and reverence left them bare ? 
Will not another take their "heritage ? 
Will there be children's laughter in their hall 
Forever and forever, or one stone 
Left on another, or is it a light thing 
That I their guest, their host, their ancient friend, 

1 made by these the last of all my race 
Must cry to these the last of theirs, as cried 
Christ ere His agony to those that swore 
Not by the temple but the gold, and made 
Their own traditions God, and slew the Lord, 
And left their memories a world's curse — ' Behold, 
Your house is left unto you desolate ?' " 



Ended he had not, but she brook'd no more : 
Long since her heart had beat remorselessly. 
Her crampt-np sorrow paiu'd her, and a sense 
Of meanness in her iinresisting life. 
Then their eyes vext her; for on entering 
He had cast the curtains of their seat aside- 
Black velvet of the costliest— she herself 
Had seen to that: fain had she closed them now, 
Yet dared not stir to do it, only near'd 
Her husband inch by inch, but when she laid, 
Wifelike, her hand in one of his, he veil'd 
His face with the other, and at once, as falls 
A creeper when the prop is broken, fell 
The woman shrieking at his feet, and swoon'd. 
Then her own people bore along the nave 
Her pendent hands, and narrow meagre face 
Seam'd with the shallow cares of fifty years : 
And her the Lord of all the landscape round 
Ev'n to its last horizon, and of all 
Who peer'd at him so keenly, foUow'd out 
Tall and erect, but in the middle aisle 
Reel'd, as a footsore ox In crowded ways 
Stumbling across the market to his death, 
Unpitied; for he groped as blind, and seem'd 
Always about to fall, grasping the pews 
And oaken finials till he touch'd the door; 
Yet to the lychgate, where his chariot stood, 
Strode from the porch, tall and erect again. 

But nevermore did either pass the gate 
Save under pall with bearers. In one mouth. 
Thro' weary and yet ever wearier hours. 
The childless mother went to seek her child; 
And when he felt the silence of his house 
About him, and the change and not the change, 
And those flxt eyes of painted ancestors 
Staring forever from their gilded walls 
On him their last descendant, his own head 
Began to droop, to fall ; the man became 
Imbecile ; his one word was " desolate ;" 
Dead for two years before his death was he ; 
But when the second Christmas came, escaped 
His keepers, and the silence which he felt, 
To find a deeper in the narrow gloom 
By wife and child ; nor wanted at his end 
The dark retinue reverencing death 
At golden thresholds ; nor from tender hearts. 
And those who sorrow'd o'er a vanish'd race. 
Pity, the violet on the tyrant's grave. 
Then the great Hall was wholly broken down. 
And the broad woodland parcell'd into farms ; 
And where the two contrived their daughter's good, 
Lies the hawk's cast, the mole has made his run, 
The hedgehog underneath the plantain bores. 
The rabbit fondles his own harmless face. 
The slow-worm creeps, and the thin weasel there 
Follows the monse, and all is open field. 



SEA DEEAMS. 

A CITY clerk, but gently born ^d bred ; 
His wife, an unknown artist's oi^an child- 
One babe was theirs, a Margaret, three years old : 
They, thinking that her clear germander eye 
Droopt in the giant-factoried city-gloom. 
Came, with a month's leave given them, to the sea : 
For which his gains were dock'd, however small : 
Small were his gains, and hard his work ; besides. 
Their slender household fortunes (for the man 
Had risk'd his little) like the little thrift, 
Trembled in perilous places o'er a deep; 
And oft, when sitting all alone, his face 
Would darken, as he cursed his credulousness, 
And that one unctuous mouth which lured him, rogue. 
To buy strange shares in some Peruvian mine. 
Now seaward-bound for health they gain'd a coast. 



196 



SEA DREAMS. 



All Baud and clifl' and deep-iuruuniug cave, 

At close of day ; slept, woke, and went the next, 

The Sabbath, pious variers from the church, 

To chapel ; where a heated pulpiteer, 

Not preaching simple Christ to simple men. 

Announced the coming doom, and fulminated 

Against the scarlet woman and her creed : 

For sideways up he swung his arms, and shriek'd, 

" Thus, thus with violence," ev'n as if he held 

The Apocalyptic millstone, and himself 

Were that great Angel ; " thus with violence 

Shall Babylon be cast into the sea; 

Then comes the close." The gentle-hearted wife 

Sat shuddering at the rain of a world ; 

He at his own : but when the wordy storm 

Had ended, forth they came and paced the shore, 

Ean in and out the long sea-framing caves. 

Drank the large air, and saw, but scarce believed 

(The sootflake of so many a summer still 

Clung to their fancies) that they saw, the sea. 

So now on sand they walk'd, and now on clifl', 

Lingering about the thymy promontories. 

Till all the sails were darken'd in the west. 

And rosed in the east : then homeward and to bed : 

Where she, who kept a tender Christian hope 

Haunting a holy text, and still to that 

Returning, as the bird returns, at night, 

" Let not the sun go down upon your wrath," 

Said, "Love, forgive him:" but he did not speak ; 

And silenced by that silence lay the wife, 

Remembering her dear Lord who died for all. 

And musing on the little lives of men, 

And how they mar this little by their feuds. 

But while the two were sleeping('a full tide 
Rose with ground-swell, which, on the foremost rocks 
Touching, upjetted in spirts of wild sea-smoke. 
And scaled in sheets of wasteful foam, and fell 
In vast sea-cataracts — ever and anon 
Dead claps of thunder from within the cliffs 
Heard thro' the living roar.^ At this the babe. 
Their Margaret cradled near them, wail'd and woke 
The mother, and the father suddenly cried, 
"A wreck, a wreck '." then turu'd, and groaning said 

"Forgive ! How many will say ' forgive,' and find 
A sort of absolution in the sound 
To hate a little longer ! No ; the sin 
That neither God nor man can well forgive, 
Hypocrisy, I saw it in him at once. 
Is it so true that second thoughts are best ? 
Not first, and third, which are a riper first? 
Too ripe, too late ! they come too late for use. 
Ah love, there surely lives in man and beast 
Something divine to warn them of their foes ; 
And such a sense, when first I fronted him. 
Said, 'Trust him not;' but after, when I came 
To know him more, I lost it, knew him less ; 
Fought with what seem'd my own uncharity ; 
Sat at his table ; drank his costly wines ; 
Made more and more allowance for his talk : 
Went further, fool ! and trusted him with all. 
All my poor scrag^gs from a dozen years 
Of dust and deskwork ; there is no such mine. 
None ; but a gulf of ruin, swallowing gold. 
Not making. Ruiu'd ! ruiu'd ! the sea roars 
Ruin: a fearful night!" 

" Not fearful ; fiur," 
Said the good wife, " if every star in heaven 
Can make it fair: you do but hear the tide. 
Had you ill dreams?" 

"O yes," he said, "I dream'd 
Of such a tide swelling toward the land. 
And I from out the boundless oiiter deep 
Swept with it to the shore, and enter'd one 
Of those dark caves that run beneath the cliffs. 



I thought the motion of the boundless deep 

Bore through the cave, and I was heaved upon it 

In darkness : then I saw one lovely star 

Larger and larger. 'What a world,' I thought, 

' To live in !' but in moving on I found 

Only the landward exit of the cave. 

Bright with the sun upon the stream beyond: 

And near the light a giant woman sat. 

All over earthy, like a piece of earth, 

A pickaxe in her hand : then out I slipt 

Into a land all sun and blossom, trees 

As high as heaven, and every bird that sings: 

And here the night-light flickering in my eye.-) 

Aw"oke me." 

"That was then your dream," she said, .^ 
"Not sad, but sweet." .'p 

" So sweet, I lay," said he, 
" And mused upon it, drifting up the stream 
In fancy, till I slept again, and pieced 
The broken vision ; for I dream'd that still 
The motion of the great deep bore me on. 
And that the woman walk'd upon the brink: 
I wonder'd at her strength, and ask'd her of it: 
'It came,' she said, 'by working in the mines:' 

then to ask her of my shares, I thought ; 
And ask'd ; but not a word ; she shook her head. 
And then the motion of the current ceased. 
And there was rolling thunder; and we reach'd 
A mountain, like a wall of burrs and thorns; 
But she with her strong feet up the steep hill 
Trod out a path : I foUow'd ; and at top 

She pointed seaward : there a fleet of glass. 
That seem'd a fleet of jewels under me, 
Sailing along before a gloomy cloud 
That not one moment ceased to thunder, past 
In sunshine ; right across its track there lay, 
Down in the water, a long reef of gold. 
Or what seem'd gold : and I was glad at first 
To think that in our often-ransacked world 
Still so much gold was left; and then I fear'd 
Lest the gay navy there should splinter on it, 
And fearing waved my arm to warn them off; 
An idle signal, for the brittle fleet 
(I thought I could have died to save it) near'd, 
Touch'd, cliuk'd, and clash'd, and vanish'd, and I 
woke, 

1 heard the clash so clearly. Now I see 

My dream was Life ; the woman honest Work ; 
And my poor venture but a fleet of glass, 
Wreck'd on a reef of visionary gold." 

"Nay," said the kindly \vife to comfort him, 
"You raised your arm, you tumbled down and broke 
The glass with little Margaret's medicine in it; 
And, breaking that, you made and broke your 

dream : 
A trifle makes a dream, a trifle breaks." 

"No trifle," groan'd the husband; "yesterday 
I met him suddenly in the street, and ask'd 
That which I ask'd the woman in my dream. 
Like her, he shook his head. ' Show me the books " 
He dodged me with a long and loose account. 
'The books, the books!' but he, he could not wait, 
Bound on a matter he of life and death : 
When the great Books (see Daniel seven and ten) 
Were open'd, I should find he meant me well: 
And then began to bloat himself, and ooze 
All over with the fat affectionate smile 
That makes the widow lean. 'My dearest friend. 
Have faith, have faith ! We live by faith,' said he ; 
'And all things work together for the good 
Of those ' — it makes me sick to quote him — last 
Gript my hand hard, and with God-bless-you went. 
I stood like one that had received a blow: 
I found a hard friend in his loose accounts. 



SEA DREAMS. 



197 



A loose one in the hard grip of liis band, 
A curse in his God-bless-you : then my ey«s 
Pursued him down the street, and far away, 
Among the honest shoulders of the crowd. 
Read rascal in the motions of his back. 
And scoundrel in the supple-sliding knee." 

"Was he so bound, poor soul?" said the good 

wife; 
"So are we all: but do not call him, love. 
Before you prove him, rogue, and proved, forgive. 
His gain is loss; for he that wrongs his friend 
Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about 
A silent court of justice in his breast, 
Himself the judge and jury, and himself 
The prisoner at the bar, ever condemu'd : 
And that drags down his life: then comes what 

comes 
Hereafter: and he meant, he said he meant, 
Perhaps he meant, or partly meant, you well." 

"'With all his conscience and one eye askew' — 
Love, let me quote these lines, that you may learn 
A man is likewise counsel for himself. 
Too often in that silent court of yours — 
' With all his conscience and one eye askew. 
So false, he partly took himself for true ; 
Whose pious talk, when most his heart was dry. 
Made wet the crafty crowsfoot round his eye ; 
Who, never naming God except for gain. 
So never took that useful name in vain ; 
Made Him his catspaw and the Cross his tool. 
And Christ the bait to trap his dupe and fool ; 
Nor deeds of gift, but gifts of grace he forged, 
And snakelike slimed his victim ere he gorged ; 
And oft at Bible meetings, o'er the rest 
Arising, did his holy oily best. 
Dropping the too rough H in Hell and Heaven, 
To spread the Word by which himself had thriven.' 
How like you this old satire?" 

"Nay," she said, 
"I loathe it: he bad never kindly heart. 
Nor ever cared to better his own kind, 
Who first wrote satire with no pity in it. 
But will you hear my dream, for I had one 
That altogether went to music? Still 
It awed me." 

Then she told it, having dream'd 
Of that same coast. 

— "But round the North, a light, 
A belt, it seem'd, of luminous vapor, lay. 
And ever in it a low musical note 
Swell'd up and died; and, as it swell'd, a ridge 
Of breaker issued from the belt, aud still 
Grew with the growing note, and when the note 
Had reach'd a thunderous fullness on those cliffs 
Broke, mixt with awful light (the same as that 
Living within the belt) whereby she saw 
That all those lines of cliffs were cliffs no more. 
But huge cathedral fronts of every age, 
Grave, florid, stern, as far as eye could see. 
One after one : and then the great »-idge drew, 
Lessening to the lessening music, back, 
Aud past into the belt and swell'd again 
Slowly to music: ever when it broke 
The statues, king or saint, or founder, fell ; 
Then from the gaps and chasms of ruin left 
Came men and women in dark clusters round. 
Some crying 'Set them up! they shall not fall!' 
And others, 'Let them lie, for they have fall'n.' 
And still they strove and wrangled : aud she grieved 
In her strange dream, she kuew not why, to find 
Their wildest wailings never out of tune 
With that sweet note ; and ever as their shrieks 
Ran highest np the gamut, that great wave 



Returning, while none mark'd it, on the crowd 
Broke, mixt with awful light, and show'd their eyes 
Glaring, aud passionate looks, and swept away 
The men of flesh and blood, aud men of stone, 
To the waste deeps together. 

"Then I flxt 
My wistful eyes on two fair images, 
Both crown'd with stars and high among the stars,— 
The Virgin Mother standing with her child 
High up on one of those dark minster-fronts— 
Till she began to totter, and the child 
Clung to the mother, and sent out a cry 
Which mixt with little Margaret's, and I woke, 
And my dream awed me: — well— but what are 

dreams ? 
Yours came but from the breaking of a glass, 
And mine but from the crying of a child." 

"Child? No!" said he, "but this tide's roar, and 

his. 
Our Boanerges, with his threats of doom. 
And loud-lung'd Antibabylonianisms 
(Altho' I grant but little music there) 
Went both to make your dream : but if there were 
A music harmonizing our wild cries. 
Sphere-music such as that you dream'd about, 
Why, that would make our passions far too like 
The discords dear to the musician. No — 
One shriek of hate would jar all the hymns of 

heaven : 
True Devils with no ear, they howl in tune 
With nothing but the Devil!" 

" 'True' indeed! 
One of our town, but later by an horn- 
Here than ourselves, spoke with me on the shore ; 
While you were running down the sands, aud made 
The dimpled flounce of the sea-furbelow flap. 
Good man, to please the child. She brought strange 

news. 
Why were you silent when I spoke to-night? 
I had set my heart on your forgiving him 
Before you kuew. We must forgive the dead." 

" Dead I who is dead ?" 

"The man your eye pursued. 
A little after you had parted with him. 
He suddenly dropt dead of heart-disease." 

" Dead ? he ? of heart-disease ? what heart had he 
To die of? dead !" 

" Ah, dearest, if there be 
A devil in man, there is an angel too, 
Aud if he did that wrong you charge him with, 
His angel broke his heart. But your rough voice 
(You spoke so loud) has roused the child again. 
Sleep, little birdie, sleep ! will she not sleep 
Without her 'little birdie?' well then, sleep. 
And I will sing you ' birdie.' " 

Saying this. 
The woman half turn'd round from him she loved. 
Left him one hand, aud reaching thro' the night 
Her other, found (for it was close beside) 
Aud half embraced the basket cradle-head 
With one soft arm, which, like the pliant bough 
That moving moves the nest and nestling, sway'd 
The cradle, while she sang this baby song. 

What does little birdie say 
In her nest at peep of day ? 
Let me fly, says little birdie. 
Mother, let me fly away. 
Birdie, rest a little longer. 
Till the little wings are stronger. 



198 



THE GEANDMOTHER. 



' So she rests a little longer, 
Then she flies away. 

What does little baby say, 
In her bed at peep of day? 
Baby says, like little birdie, 
Let me rise and fly away. 
Baby, sleep a little longer. 
Till the little limbs are stronger. 
If she sleeps a little longer. 
Baby too shall fly away. 



"She sleeps: let ns too, let all evil, sleep. 
He also sleeps — another sleep than ours. 
He can do no more wrong: forgive him, dear. 
And I shall sleep the sounder !" 

Then the man, 
"His deeds yet live, the worst is yet to come. 
Yet let your sleep for this one night be sound: 
I do forgive him !" 

"Thanks, my love," she safd, 
"Your own will be the sweeter," and they slept. 



THE GIlAOT)MOTHER. 



And Willy, my eldest-bom, is gone, you say, little Anne ? 
Euddy and white, and strong on his legs, he looks like a man. 
And Willy's wife has written: she never was over-wise, 
Never the wife for Willy: he would n't take my advice. 

II. 

For, Annie, yon see, her father was not the man to save. 
Had n't a head to manage, and drank himself into his grave. 
Pretty enough, very pretty ! but I was against it for one. 
Eh !— but he would n't hear me— and Willy, you say, is gone. 

in. 

Willy, my beauty, my eldest-bom, the flower of the flock ; 

Never a man could fling him: for Willy stood like a rock. 

"Here's a leg for a baby of a week!" says doctor: and he would be bonuJ, 

There was not his like that year in twenty parishes round. 

IV. 

Strong of his hands, and strong on his legs, but still of his tongue ! 
I ought to have gone before him: I wonder he went so young. 
I cannot cry for him, Annie : I have not long to stay ; 
Perhaps I shall see him the sooner, for he lived far away. 

V. 

Why do you look at me, Annie ? you think I am hard and cold ; 
But all my children have gone before me, I am so old : 
I cannot weep for Willy, nor can I weep for the rest ; 
Only at your age, Annie, I could have wept with the best. 

VI. 

For I remember a quarrel I had with your father, my dear, 
All for a slanderous story, that cost me many a tear. 
I mean your grandfather, Annie : it cost me a world of woe, 
Seventy years ago, my darling, seventy years ago. 

vn. 

For Jenny, my cousin, had come to the place, and I knew right well 
That Jenny had tript in her time : I knew, but I would not tell. 
And she to be coming and slandering me, the base little liar ! 
But the tongue is a fire, as you know, my dear, the tongue is a fire. 

VIII. 

And the parson made it his text that week, and he said likewise. 
That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies, 
That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright, 
But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight. 

IX. 

And Willy had not been down to the farm for a week and a day; 
And all things look'd half-dead, tho' it was the middle of May. 
Jenny, to slander me, who knew what Jenny had been ! 
Bat soiling another, Annie, will never make one's self clean. 

X. 

And I cried myself wellnigh blind, and all of an evening late 

I climb'd to the top of the garth, and stood by the road at the gate. 

The moon like a rick on fire was rising over the dale, 

And whit, whit, rhit, in the bush beside me chirrupt the nightingale. 



THE GRANDMOTHER. 199 



XL 

All of a suddeu he stopt: there past by the gate of the farm, 
Willy, — he did u't see me, — and Jenny hung on his arm. 
Out into the road I started, and spoke I scarce knew how; 
Ah, there's no fool like the old one— it makes me angry now. 

XII. 

Willy stood up like a man, and look'd the thing that he meant ; 
Jenny, the viper, made me a mocking courtesy and went. 
And I said, "Let us part: in a hundred years it '11 all be the same. 
You cannot love me at all, if you love not my good name." 

XIII. 

And he turn'd, and I saw his eyes all wet, in the sweet moonshine: 
" Sweetheart, 1 love you so well that your good name is mine. 
And what do I care for Jane, let her speak of you well or ill ; 
But marry me out of hand: we too shall be happy still." 

XIV. 

' Marry you, Willy !" said I, " but I needs must speak my mind. 
And I fear you'll listen to tales, be jealous and hard and unkind." 
But he turn'd and claspt me in his arms, and answer'd, "No, love, no;" 
Seventy years ago, my darling, seventy years ago. 

XV. 

So Willy and I were wedded : I wore a lilac gown ; 
And the ringers rang with a will, and he gave the ringers a crown. 
But the first that ever I bare was dead before he was born, 
Shadow and shine is life, little Annie, flower and thorn. 

XVI. 

That was the first time, too, that ever I thought of death. 

There lay the sweet little body that never had drawn a breath. 

I had not wept, little Annie, not since I had been a wife ; 

But I wept like a child that day, for the babe had fought for his life. 

XVIL 

His dear little face was troubled, as if vrith anger or pain : 

I look'd at the still little body— his trouble had all been in vain. 

For Willy I cannot weep, I shall see him another mom : 

But I wept like a child for the child that was dead before he was born. 

XVIIL 

But he cheer'd me, my good man, for he seldom said me nay : 
Kind, like a man, was he; like a man, too, would have his way: 
Never jealous— not he : we had many a happy year ; 
And he died, and I could not weep — my own time seem'd so near. 

XIX. 
But I wish'd it had been God's will that I, too, then could have died: 
I began to be tired a little, and fain had slept at his side. 
And that was ten years back, or more, if I don't forget: 
But as to the children, Annie, they 're all about me yet. 

XX. 

Pattering over the boards, my Annie who left me at two, 
Patter she goes, my own little Annie, an Annie like you : 
Pattering over the boards, she comes and goes at her will. 
While Harry is in the five-acre and Charlie ploughing the hill. 

XXL 

And Harry and Charlie, T hear them too— they sing to their team : 
Often they come to the door in a pleasant kind of a dream. 
They come and sit by my chair, they hover about my bed — 
I am not always certain if they be alive or dead. 

XXII. 

And yet I know for a truth, there 's none of them left alive ; 
For Hari-y went at sixty, your father at sixty-five : 
And Willy, my eldest-born, at nigh threescore and ten ; 
I knew them all as babies, and now they 're elderly men. 

xxm. 

For mine is a time of peace, it is not often I grieve; 
I am oftener sitting at home in my father's farm at eve: 
And the neighbors come and laugh and gossip, and so do I; 
I find myself often laughing at things that have long gone bj'. 



200 NORTHERN FARMER. 



XXIV. 

To be sure the preacher says, our sins should make us sad : 
But mine is a time of peace, and there is Grace to be had ; 
And God, not mau, is tiie Judge of us all wheu life shall cease ; 
.And in this Book, little Annie, the message is one of Peace. 

XXV, 

And age is a time of peace, so it be free from pain, 
And happy has been my life ; but I would not live it again. 
I seem to be tired a little, that 's all, and long for rest : 
Only at your age, Annie, I could have wept with the best. 

XXVI. 

So Willy has gone, my beauty, my eldest-born, my flower ; 
But how can I weep for Willy, he has but gone for an hour, — 
Gone for a minute, my son, from this room into the next ; 
I, too, shall go in a minute. What time have I to be vext? 

XXVII. 

And Willy's wife has written, she never was over-wise. 

Get me my glasses, Annie: thank God that I keep my eyes. 

There is but a trifle left you, when I shall have past away. 

But stay with the old woman now: you cannot have long to stay. 



NORTHERN FARMER. 

OLD STYLE. 
I. 

Wheeb 'asta be;in saw long and meii Hggiu' 'ere aloiin ? 
Noorse? thoort uowt o' a noorse: whoy, doctor 's abeiin an' agoiiu: 
Says that I moiint 'a naw moor yaale : but I beiiut a fool : 
Git ma my yaale, for I beiint a-gooin' to break my rule. 

II. 

Doctors, they kuaws nowt, for a says what 's nawwn}'s true: 
Naw soort o' koind o' use to saSy the things that a do. 
I 've 'ed my point o' yaiil ivry noight sin' I beiiu 'ere. 
An' I 've 'ed my quart ivry market-noight for foorty year. 

III. 

Parson 's a beun loikewoise, an' a sittin 'ere o' my bed. 

" The amoighty 's a taakin o' you to 'issen, my friend," 'a said, 

An' a towd ma my sins, an 's toithe were due, au' I gied it in bond ; 

I done my duty by un, as I 'a done by the lond. 

IV. 

Larn'd a ma' beii. I reckons I 'aunot sa mooch to larn. 

But a cost oop, thot a did, 'boot Bessy Marris's barn. 

Thof a knaws I hallus voiited wi' Squoire an' choorch an staate, 

An' i' the woost o' toimes I wur uiver agin the raiite. 



An' I hallus comed to 's choorch afoor my Sally wur deiid, 
An' 'eerd un a bummin' avs^aiiy loike a buzzard-clock* ower my yeiid, 
An' I niver knaw'd whot a mean'd but I thowt a 'ad summut to saiiy, 
An' I thowt a said whot a owt to 'a said an' I comed awaiiy. 

VI. 

Bessy Marris's barn ! tha knaws she laiiid it to meii. 
Mowt 'a beiin, mayhap, for she wur a bad un, sheii. 
'Siver, I kep un, I kep nn, my lass, tha mun understoud ; 
I done my duty by un as I 'a done by the lond. 

VII. 

But Parson a comes an' a goos, an' a says it easy an' freea 

" The amoighty 's a taiikin o' you to 'issen, my friend," says 'ea. 

I Aveiint saiiy men be loiars, thof summun said it in 'aiiste: 

But a reiids wonn sarmin a weeak, an' I 'a stubb'd Thornaby waiisle. 

VIII. 
D' ya moind the waaste, my lass ? naw, naw, tha was not born then ; 
Theer wur a boggle in it, I often 'eerd un mysen ; 
Moiist loike a butter-bump, t for I 'eerd un aboot an aboot, 
But I stubb'd un oop wi' the lot, and raiived an' rembled un oot. 

* Cockchafer. t Bittern. 



TITHONUS. 



201 



IX. 

Keiiper's it wur; fo' they fun uu theer a lafiid on 'is fauce 
Dooo i' tlie woild 'enemies* afooi- I corned to tlie plaiice. 
Noiiks or Thimbleby— toner 'ed frlxot an as deiid as a naiiil. 
Noaks wur 'ang'd for it oop at 'soize— but git ma my yaiile. 

X. 

Dubbut looak at the waaste : theer war n't not feiid for a cow ; 
Nowt at all but bracken an' fuzz, an' looak at it now — 
War n't worth nowt a haiicre, an' now theer's lots o' feiid, 
Fourscore yows upon it an' some on it doou in seiid. 

XI. 

Nobbut a bit on it 's left, an' I mean'd to 'a stubb'd it at fall, 
Done it ta-year I mean'd, an' ruuu'd plow thruff it an' all, 
If godamoighty an' parson 'nd nobbut let ma aloiin, 
Mea, wi' hatite oouderd haucre o' Squoire's an' load o' my o:iu. 

XII. 

Do godamoighty knaw what a 's doing a-taiikin' o' mefi ? 

I beiint wonu as saws 'ere a beiin an' yonder a peii; 

An' Squoire 'ull be sa mad an' all — a' dear a' dear ! 

And I 'a mouaged for Squoire come Michaelmas thirty year. 

xni. 

A mowt 'a taiiken Joiines, as 'ant a 'aiipoth o' sense, 
Or a mowt 'a tatiken Robins — a uiver mended a fence: 
But godamoighty a moost taiike meil an' ta;ike ma now 
Wi' auf the cows to cauve an' Thornaby holms to plow ! 

XIV. 

Loojik 'ow quoloty sraoiles when they sees ma a passin' by, 

Fiays to thessen naw doot "what a mon a be sewer-ly !" 

For they kuaws what I beiin to Squoire sin fust a corned to the 'All ; 

I done my duty by Squoire an' I done my duty by all. 

XV. 

Squoire 's in Lunuon, an' summun I reckons 'ull 'a to wroite, 
For who 's to howd the lond ater meii thot muddles ma quoit; 
Sartin-sewer I beii, thot a weiint niver give it to Joiines, 
Noither a moiint to Robins — a uiver rembles the stoiins. 

XVI. 

But summun 'ull come ater meii mayhap wi' 'is kittle o' steiini 
Huzzin' an' maiizin' the blessed feiilds wi' the Divil's oiin teiim 
Gin I mun doy I mun doy, an' loife they says is sweet, 
But gin I mun doy I mun doy, for I couldn abear to see it. 

XVII. 

What atta stanniii' theer for, an' doesn bring ma the yaiile? 
Doctor 's a 'tottler, lass, and a 's hallns i' the owd taiile ; 
I weiint breiik rules for Doctor, a knaves naw moor nor a floy : 
Git ma my yaiile I tell tha, an' gin I mun doy I mun doy. 



TITHONUS. 

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall, 

The vapors weep their burthen to the ground, 

Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, 

And after many a summer dies the swan. 

Me only cruel immortality 

Consumes : I wither slowly in thine arms. 

Here at the quiet limit of the world, 

A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream 

The ever silent spaces of the East, 

Fai'-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn. 

Alas ! for this gray shadow, once a man — 
So glorious in his beauty and thy choice, 
Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem'd 
To his grqat heart none other than a God ! 
I ask'd thee "Give me immortality." 
Then did'st thou grant mine asking with a smile, 
Like wealthy men who care not how they give. 



But thy strong Hours indignant work'd their wills. 

And beat me down and marred and wasted me, 

And tho' they could not end me, left me maira'd 

To dwell in presence of immortal youth. 

Immortal age beside immortal youth. 

And all I was, in ashes. Can thy love, 

Thy beauty, make amends, tho' even now. 

Close over us, the silver star, thy guide. 

Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears 

To hear me ? Let me go : take back thy gift : 

Why should a man desire in any way 

To vary from the kindly race of men. 

Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance 

Where all should pause, as is most meet for all ? 

A soft air fans the cloud apart: there comes 
A glimpse of that dark world where I was born. 
Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals 
From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure 



202 



THE VOYAGE. 



And bosom beating with a heart reuew'd. 
Thy cheek begins to redden thro' the gloom, 
Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine, 
Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team 
Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise, 
And shake the darkness from their looseu'd manes, 
And beat the twilight into flakes of fire. 

Lo 1 ever thus thou growest beautiful 
In silence, then before thine answer given 
Departest, and thy tears are on my cheek. 

Why wilt thou ever scare me with tliy tears, 
And make me tremble lest a saying learnt 
lu days far-off, on that dark earth, be true ? 
"The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts." 

Ay me ! ay me ! with what another heart 
In days far-off, and with what other eyes 
I used to watch— if I be he that watch'd — 
The lucid outline forming round thee ; saw 
The dim curls kindle into sunny rings ; 
Changed with thy mystic change, and felt my blood 
Glow with the glow that slowly crimsou'd all 
Thy presence and thy portals, while I lay. 
Mouth, forehead, eyelids, growing dewy-warm 
With kisses balmier than half-opening buds 
Of April, and could hear the lips that kiss'd 
Whispering I knew not what of wild and sweet. 
Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing, 
While Ilion like a mist rose into towers. 

Yet hold me not forever in thine East: 
How can my nature longer mix with thine V 
Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold 
Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet 
Upon thy glimmering thresholds, when the steam 
Floats up from those dim fields about the homes 
Of happy men that have the power to die, 
And grassy barrows of the happier dead. 
Release me, and restore me to the ground : 
Thou seest all things, thou wilt see my grave < 
Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn ; 
I earth in earth forget these empty courts. 
And thee returning on thy silver wheels. 



THE VOYAGE. 

I. 
We left behind the painted buoy 

That tosses at the harbor-mouth : 
And madly danced our hearts with joy, 

As fast we fleeted to the South: 
How fresh was every sight and sound 

On open main or winding shore ! 
We knew the merry world was round, 

And we might sail forevermore. 

II. 

Warm broke the breeze against the brow. 

Dry sang the tackle, sang the sail : 
The Lady's-head upon tlie prow 

•Caught the shrill salt, and sheer'd the gale. 
The broad seas swell'd to meet the keel. 

And swept behind: so quick the run. 
We felt the good ship shake and reel, 

We seem'd to sail into the Sun ! 

III. 

How oft we saw the Sun retire, 

And burn the threshold of the night, 
Fall from his Ocean-lane of fire, 

And sleep beneath his pillar'd light ! 
How oft the purple-skirted robe 

Of twilight slowly downward drawn, 
As thro' the slumber of the globe 

Again we dasb'd into the dawu! 



IV. 

New stars all night above the brim 

Of waters lighten'd into view ; 
They climb'd as quickly, for the rim 

Changed every moment as we flew. 
Far ran the naked moon across 

The houseless ocean's heaving field, 
Or flying shone, the silver boss 

Of her own halo's dusky shield ; 



The peaky islet shifted shapes, 

High towns on hilly were dimly seen, 
We past long lines of Northern capes 

And dewy Northern meadows green. 
We came to warmer waves, and deep 

Across the boundless east we drove. 
Where those long swells of breaker sweep 

The nutmeg rocks and isles of clove. 

VI. 

By peaks that flamed, or, all in shade, 

Gloom'd the low coast and quivering briue 
With ashy rains, that spreading made 

Fantastic plume or sable pine ; 
By sands and steaming flats, and floods 

Of mighty mouth, we scudded fast. 
And hills and scarlet-mingled woods 

Glow'd for a moment as we past. 

VII. 

O hundred shores of happy climes, 

How swiftly stream'd ye by the bark ! 
At times the whole sea burn'd, at times 

With wakes of fire we tore the dark ; 
At times a carven craft wouid shoot 

From havens hid in fairy bowers. 
With naked limbs and flowers and fruit, 

But we nor paused for fruits nor flowers. 

VIII. 

For one fair Vision ever fled 

Down the waste waters day and night, 
And still we foUow'd where she led, 

In hope to gain upon her flight. 
Her face was evermore unseen, 

And flxt upon the far sea-line ; 
But each man murmur'd, "O my Queen, 

I follow till I make thee mine." 

IX. 

And now we lost her, now she gleam'd 

Like Fancy made of golden air. 
Now nearer to the prow she seem'd 

Like Virtue firm, like Knowledge fair. 
Now high on waves that idly burst 

Like Heavenly Hope she crown'd the sea, 
And now, the bloodless point reversed, 

She bore the blade of Liberty. 

X. 

And only one among us— him 

We pleased not— he was seldom pleased ; 
He saw not far: his eyes were dim: 

But ours he swore were all diseased. 
"A ship of fools," he shriek'd in spite, 

"A ship of fools," he sneer'd and wept. 
And overboard one stormy night 

He cast his body, and on we swept. 

XL 

And never sail of ours was furl'd, 

Nor anchor dropt at eve or morn ; 
We loved the glories of the world ; 

But laws of nature were our scora ; 
For blasts would rise and rave and cease. 

But whence were those that drove the sail 
Across the whirlwind's heart of peace, 

And to and thro' the counter-gale? 



IN THE VALLEY OF CAUTERETZ.— THE RINGLET. 



203 



XII. 

Again to colder climes we came, 

For still we foUow'd where she led: 
Now mate is blind and captain lame, 

And half the crew are sick or dead. 
But blind or lame or sick or sound, 

We follow that which flies before: 
We know the merry world is round. 

And we may sail forevermore. 



IN THE VALLEY OF CAUTERETZ. 

All along the valley, stream that flui-hest white, 

Deepening thy voice with the deepening of the night, 

All along the valley, where thy waters flow, 

I walk'd with one I loved two and thirty years ago. 

All along the valley, while I walk'd to-day. 

The two and thirty years were a mist that rolls away; 

For all along the valley, down thy rocky bed, 

Thy living voice to me was as the voice of the dead, 

And all along the valley, by rock and cave and tree, 

The voice of the dead was a living voice to me. 



THE FLOWER. 

Once in a golden hour 

I cast to earth a seed. 
Up there came a flower, 

The people said, a weed. 

To and fro they went 
Thro' my garden- bower. 

And muttering discontent 
Cursed me and my flower. 

Then it grew so tall 
It wore a crown of light, 

But thieves from .o'er the wall 
Stole the seed by night. 

Sow'd it far and wide 
By every town and tower. 

Till all the people cried, 
" Splendid is the flower." 

Read my little fable ; 

He that runs may read. 
Most can raise the flowers now, 

For all have got the seed. 

And some are pretty enough. 
And some are poor indeed; 

And now again the people 
Call it but a weed. 



THE ISLET. 

"WniTHER, O whither, love, shall we go, 
For a score of sweet little summers or so?" 
The sweet little wife of the singer said 
On the day that follow'd the day she was wed 
' Whither, O whither, love, shall we go ?' 
And the singer shaking his curly head 
Turn'd as he sat, and struck the keys 
There at his right with a sudden crash. 
Singing, " And shall it be over the seas 
With a crew that is neither rude nor rash, 
But a bevy of Eroses apple-cheek'd. 
In a shallop of crystal ivory-beak'd. 
With a satin sail of a ruby glow, 
To a sweet little Eden on earth that I know, 
A mountain islet pointed and peak'd ; 
Waves on a diamond shingle dash, 



Cataract brooks to the ocean run, 

Fairily-delicate palaces shine 

Mixt with myrtle and clad with vine, 

And overstream'd and silvery-streak'd 

With many a rivulet high against the Sun , 

The facets of the glorious mountain flash 

Above the valleys of palm and pine." 

" Thither, O thither, love, let us go." 

"No, no, no ! 

For in all that exquisite isle, my dear, 

There is but one bird with a musical throat. 

And his compass is but of a single note. 

That it makes one weary to hear." 

"Mock me not ! mock me not ! love, let us go." 

"No, love, no. 

For the bud ever breaks into bloom on the tree. 
And a storm never wakes on the lonely sea. 
And a worm is there in the lonely wood. 
That pierces the liver and blackens the blood. 
And makes it a sorrow to be." 



REQUIESCAT. 

Fair is her cottage in its place, 

Where yon broad water sweetly slowly glides 
It sees itself from thatch to base 

Dream in the sliding tides. 

And fairer she, but ah, how sodn to die! 

Her quiet dream of life this hour may cease. 
Her peaceful being slowly passes by 

To some more perfect peace. 



THE SAILOR-BOY. 

He rose at dawn and, fired with hope. 
Shot o'er the seething harbor-bar, 

And reach'd the ship and caught the rope, 
And whistled to the morning star. 

And while he whistled long and loud 
He heard a fierce mermaiden cry, 

"O Boy, tho' thou art young and proud, 
I see the place where thou wilt lie. 

"The sands and yeasty surges mix 

In caves about the dreary bay. 
And on thy ribs the limpet sticks. 

And in thy heart the scrawl shall play." 

"Fool," he answer'd, "death is sure 
To those that stay and those that roam. 

But I will nevermore endure 
To sit with empty hands at home. 

"My mother clings about my neck. 
My sisters crying, 'Stay, for shame;' 

My father raves of death and wreck. 
They are all to blame, they are all to blame. 

"God help me 1 save I take my part 

Of danger on the roaring sea, 
A devil rises in my heart. 

Far worse than any death to me." 



THE RINGLET. 

" YoxTK ringlets, your ringlets, 
That look so golden-gay. 

If you will give me one, but one, 
To kiss it night and day. 



204 



A WELCOME TO ALEXANDRA.— A DEDICATION. 



Theu never chilling touch of Time 

Will turn it silver-gray ; 
And theu shall I know it is all trne gold 
To flame and sparkle and stream as of old, 
Till all the comets in heaven are cold, 

And all her stars decay." 
" Then take it, love, and put it by ; 
This cannot change, nor yet can I." 



"My ringlet, my ringlet, 

That art so golden-gay, 
Now never chilling touch of Time 

Can turn thee silver-gray; 
And a lad may wink, and a girl may hint. 

And a fool may say his say; 
For my doubts and fears were all amiss, 
And I swear henceforth by this and this, 
That a doubt will only come for a kiss. 

And a fear to be kiss'd away." 
"Then kiss it, love, and put it by: 
If this can change, why so can I." 



Ringlet, O Ringlet, 

I kiss'd you night and day, 
And Ringlet, O Ringlet, 

You still are golden-gay, 
But Ringlet, O Ringlet, 

You should be silver-gray: 
For what is this which now I'm told, 

1 that took you for true gold, 

She that gave you 'e Ijought and sold. 
Sold,, sold. 



O Ringlet, O Ringlet, 

She blush'd a rosy red. 
When Ringlet, O Ringlet, 

She dipt you from her head, 
And Ringlet, O Ringlet, 

She gave you me, and said, 
" Come, kiss it, love, and put it by ; 
If this can change, why so can I." 
O tie, you golden nothing, fle 

You golden lie. 



O Ringlet, O Ringlet,. 

I count you much to blame, 
For Ringlet, O Ringlet, 

You put me much to shame, « 
So Ringlet, O Ringlet, 

I doom you to the flame. 
For what is this which now I learn, 
Has given all my faith a turn ? 
Burn, you glossy heretic, burn, 
Burn, burn. 



A WELCOME TO ALEXANDRA. 
March 7, 1863. 

Sea-kings' daughter from over the sea, 

Alexandra ! 

Saxon and Norman and Dane are we, 

But all of us Danes in our welcome of thee, 

Alexandra ! 

Welcome her, thunders of fort and of fleet ! 

Welcome her, thundering cheer of the street ! 

JVelcome her, all things youthful and sweet. 

Scatter the blossom under her feet ! 

Break, happy land, into earlier flowers ! 

Make music, O bird, in the new-budded bowers ! 

Blazon your mottoes of blessing and prayer 1 

Welcome her, welcome her, all that is ours ! 



Warble, O bugle, aud trumpet, blare ! 
Flags, flutter out upon turrets aud towers ! 
Flames, ou the windy headland flare ! 
Utter your jubilee, steeple and spire ! 
Clash, ye bells, iu the merry March air ! 
Flash, ye cities, in rivers of fire ! 
Rush to the roof, sudden rocket, and higher 
Melt into the stars for the land's desire ! 
Roll aud rejoice, jubilant voice. 
Roll as a ground-swell dash'd on the strand, 
Roar as the sea when he welcomes the land, 
And welcome her, welcome the land's desire, 
The sea-kings' daughter as happy as fair. 
Blissful bride of a blissful heir, 
Bride of the heir of the kings of the sea— 
O joy to the people, aud joy to the throne, 
Come to us, love us, and make us your own ; 
For Saxon or Dane or Norman we, 
Teuton or Celt, or whatever we be, 
We are each all Dane in our welcome of thee, 

Alexandra ! 



ODE SUNG AT THE OPENING OF THE 
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION. 

Uplift a thousand voices full and sweet. 
In this wide hall with earth's invention stored, 
And praise th' invisible universal Lord, 

Who lets once more in peace the nations meet. 
Where Science, Art, aud Labor have outpour'd 

Their myriad horns of plenty at our feet. 

O silent father of our Kings to be 

Mouru'd in this golden hour of jubilee, 

For this, for all, we weep our thanks to thee '. 

The world-compelling plan was thine. 

And lo ! the long laborious miles. 

Of Palace ; lo ! the giant aisles, 

Rich in model aud. design ; 

Harvest-tool and husbandry, 

Loom and wheel and eugin'ry. 

Secrets of the sullen mine. 

Steel and gold, and corn and wine, 

Fabric rough, or Fairy flue. 

Sunny tokens of the Line, 

Polar marvels, and a feast 

Of wonder out of West and East, 

And shapes aud hues of Art divine I 

All of beauty, all of use, 

That one fair planet can produce. 

Brought from under every star, 
Blowu from over every main. 
And mixt, as life is mixt with pain. 

The works of peace with works of war. 

O ye, the wise who think, the wise who reign, 
From growing commerce loose her latest chain, 
And let the lair white-winged peacemaker fly 
To happy havens under all the sky. 
And mix the seasons and the golden hour.«. 
Till each man fiuds his own iu all men's'good, 
And all men work in noble brotherhood. 
Breaking their mailed fleets and armed towers. 
And ruling by obeying Nature's powers. 
And gathering all the fruits of peace and crowu'd 
with all her flowers. 



A DEDICATION. 

Dkak, near and true — no truer Time himself 
Can prove you, tho' he make you evermore 
Dearer aud nearer, as the rapid of life 
Shoots to the fall— take this, and pray that he, 



THE CAPTAIN.— THREE SONNETS TO A COQUETTE.— ON A MOURNER. 205 



WTio wrote it, houoriug your sweet faith in him, 
May trust himself; and spite of praise and scorn. 
As one who feels the immeasurable world, 
Attain the wise indifference of the wise ; 
And after Autumn past— if left to pass 
His autumn into seeming-leafless days — 
Draw toward the long frost and longest night, 
Wearing his wisdom lightly, like the fruit 
.Which in our winter woodland looks a flower.* 



THE CAPTAIN. 

A LEGEND OF THE NAVY. 

He that only rules by terror 

Doeth grievous wrong. 
Deep as Hell I count his error, ■ 

Let him hear my song. 
Brave the Captain was: the seamen 

Made a gallant crew. 
Gallant sons of English freemen, 

Sailors bold and true. 
But they hated his oppression, 

Stern he was and rash i 
So for every light transgression 

Doom'd them to the lash. 
Day by day more harsh and cruel 

Seem'd the Captain's mood. 
Secret wrath like smother'd fuel 

Burnt in each man's blood. 
Yet he hoped to purchase glory. 

Hoped to make the name 
Of his vessel great in story, 

Wheresoe'er he came. 
So they past by capes and islands, 

Many a harbor-mouth. 
Sailing under palmy highlands 

Far within the South. 
On a day when they were going 

O'er the lone expanse. 
In the North, her canvas flowing. 

Rose a ship of France. 
Then the Captain's color heighten'd 

Joyful came his speech: 
But a cloudy gladness lighten'd 

In the eyes of each. 
"Chase," he said: the ship flew forward, 

And the wind did blow; 
Stately, lightly, went she Norward, 

Till she near'd the foe. 
Then they look'd at him they hated. 

Had what they desired : 
Mute with folded arms they waited — 

Not a gun was fired. 
But they heard the foeman's thunder 

Roaring out their doom; 
All the air was torn in sunder, 

Crashing went the boom. 
Spars were splinter'd, decks were shatter'd. 

Bullets fel: like rain ; 
Over mast and deck were scatter'd 

Blood and brains of men. 
Spars were splinter'd : decks were broken : 

Every mother's son — 
Down they dropt — no word was spoken — 

Each beside his gun. 
On the decks as they were lying, 

Were their faces grim. 
In their blood, as they lay d}ang, 

Did they smile on him. 
Those, in whom he had reliance 

For his noble name. 
With one smile of still defiance 

Sold him unto shame. 
Shame and wa-ath his heart confounded. 

Pale he turn'd and red. 



' The fruit of the Spindle-tree (Euonj/mus Europavs). 



Till himself was deadly wounded 

Falling on the dead. 
Dismal error ! fearful slaughter ! 

Years have wauder'd by, 
Side by side beneath the water 

Crew and Captain lie ; 
There the sunlit ocean tosses 

O'er them mouldering. 
And the lonely seabird crosses 

With one waft of the wing. 



THREE SONNETS TO A COQUETTE. 

Caeess'd or chidden by the dainty hand. 

And singing airy trifles this or that, 
Light Hope at Beauty's call would perch and stand, 

And run thro' every change of sharp and flat: 

And Fancy came and at her pillow sat, 
When Sleep had bound her in his rosy band, 

And chased away the still-recurring gnat. 
And woke her with a lay from fairy land. 
But now they live with Beauty less and less. 

For Hope is other Hope and wanders far, 
Nor cares to lisp in love's delicious creeds ; 
And Fancy watches in the wilderness. 

Poor Fancy sadder than a single star, 
That sets' at twilight in a land of reeds. 



The form, the form alone is eloquent! 
A nobler yearning never broke her rest 
Than but to dance and sing, be gayly drest, 
And win all eyes with all accomplishment: 
Yet in the waltzing-circle as we went. 
My fancy made me for a moment blest 
To find my heart so near the beauteous breast 
That once had power to rob it of content. 
A moment came the tenderness of tears, 
The phantom of a wish that once could move, 
,A ghost of passion that no smiles restore— 
For ah ! the slight coquette, she cannot love. 
And if you kiss'd her feet a thousand years, 

She still would take the praise, anS care no 
more. 

3. 
Wan Sculptor, weepest thou to take the cast 
Of those dead lineaments that near thee lie? 

sorrowest thou, pale Painter, for the past. 
In painting some dead friend from memory ? 

Weep on : beyond his object Love can last : 
His object lives: more cause to weep have I: 

My tears, no tears of love, are flowing fast. 
No tears of love, but tears that Love can die. 

1 pledge her not in any cheerful cup. 

Nor care to sit beside her where she sits— 
Ah pity— hint it not in human tones, 
But breathe it into earth and close it up 
With secret death forever, in the pits 
Which some greeu Christmas crams with weary 
bones. 



ON A MOURNER. 

Natuee, so far as in her lies, 
Imitates God, and turns her face 

To every land beneath the skies. 
Counts nothing that she meets with base. 
But lives and loves in every place ; 



Fills out the homely quick-set screens. 
And makes the purple lilac ripe. 

Steps from her airy hill, and greens 
The swamp, where hums the dropping snipe, 
M''ith moss and braided marish-pipe ; 



206 



SONGS. — BOADICEA. 



And on thy heart a finger lays, 
Saying, "Beat quicker, for the time 

Is pleasant, and the woods and ways 
Are pleasant, and the beech and lime 
Put forth and feel a gladder clime." 



And murmurs of a deeper voice, 
Going before to some far shrine, 

Teach that sick heart the stronger choice, 
Till all thy life one way incline 
With one wide will that closes thine. 

5. 

And when the zoning eve has died 
Where you dark vaUeys wind forlorn. 

Come Hope and Memory, spouse and bride, 
From out the borders of the morn, 
With that fair child betwixt them born. 

6. 

And when no mortal motion jars 
The blackness round the tombing sod, 

Thro' silence and the trembling stars 
Comes Faith from tracts no feet have trod. 
And Virtue, like a household god, 



Promising empire ; such as those 
That once at dead of night did : 



rreet 



Troy's wandering prince, so that he rose 
With sacrifice, while all the fleet 
Had rest by stony hills of Crete. 



SONG. 

Ladt, let the rolling drums 
Beat to battle where thy warrior stands : 

Now thy face across his fancy comes. 
And gives the battle to his hands. 

Lady, let the trumpets blow. 
Clasp thy little babes about thy knee: 

Now their warrior father meets the foe, 
And strikes him dead for thine and thee. 



SONG. 

Home they brought him slain with spears. 

They brought him home at even-fall : 
All alone she sits and hears 

Echoes in his empty hall. 

Sounding on the morrow. 

The Sun peep'd in from open field, 
The boy began to leap and prance, 
Rode upon his father's lance. 

Beat upon his father's shield— 

"O hush, my joy, my sorrow." 



EXPERIMENTS. 

BOADICj^A. 

While about the shore of Mona those Neronian legionaries 
Burnt and broke the grove and altar of the Druid and Druidess, 
Far in the east Boiidicea, standing loftily chai'ioted, 
Mad and maddening all that heard her in her fierce volubility, 
Girt by half the tribes of Britain, near the colony Camulodune. 
Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters o'er a wild confederacy. 

"Thoy that scorn the tribes and call us Britain's barbarous populaces, 
Did they hear me, would they listen, did they pity me supplicating? 
Shall I heed them in their anguish ? shall I brook to be supplicated ? 
Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant ! 
Must their ever-ravening eagle's beak and talon annihilate us ? 
Tear the noble heart of Britain, leave it gorily quivering ? 
Bark an answer, Britain's raven I bark and blacken innumerable. 
Blacken round the Roman carrion, make the carcass a skeleton, 
Kite and kestrel, wolf and wolfkin, from the wilderness, wallow in it, 
TUl the face of Bel be brighten'd, Taranis be propitiated. 
Lo their colony half-defended ! lo their colony, Cdmulodune ! 
There the horde of Roman robbers mock at a barbarous adversary. 
There the hive of Roman liars worship a gluttonous emperor-idiot. 
Such is Rome, and this her deity : hear it. Spirit of Cassivelaun ! 

" Hear it, Gods ! the Gods have heard it, O Icenian, O Coritanian 1 
Doubt not ye the Gods have answer'd, Catieuchlanian, Trinobant* 
These have told us all their anger in miraculous utterances, 
Thunder, a flying fire in heaven, a murmur heard aerially, 
Phantom sound of blows descending, moan of an enemy massacred. 
Phantom wail of women and children, multitudinous agonies. 
Bloodily flow'd the Tamesa rolling phantom bodies of horses and men ; 
Then a phantom colony smoulder'd on the refluent estuary ; 
Lastly yonder yester-even, suddenly giddily tottering- 
There was one who watch'd and told me— down their statue of Victoi7 tell. 
Lo their precious Roman bantling, lo the colony Camulodune, 
Shall we teach it a Roman lesson? shall we care to be pitiful? 
Shall we deal with it as an infant? shall we dandle it amorously? 

"Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant! 
While I roved about the forest, long and bitterly meditating, 



IN QUANTITY. 



207 



There I heard them in the darkness, at the mystical ceremony, 

Loosely robed in flying raiment, sang the terrible prophetesses. 

' Pear not, isle of blowing woodland, isle of silvery parapets ! 

Tho' the Roman eagle shadow thee, tho' the gathering enemy narrow thee. 

Thou shalt wax and he shall dwindle, thou shalt be the mighty one yet ! 

Thine the liberty, thine the glory, thine the deeds to be celebrated. 

Thine the myriad-rolling ocean, light and shadow illimitable, 

Thine the lands of lasting summer, many-blossoming Paradises, 

Thine the North and thine the South and thine the battle-thunder of God.' 

So they chanted: how shall Britain light upon auguries happier? 

So they chanted in the darkness, and there cometh a victory now. 

" Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant ! 
Me the wife of rich Prasutagus, me the lover of liberty. 
Me they seized and me they tortured, me they lash'd and humiliated, 
Me the sport of ribald Veterans, mine of ruffian violators ! 
See they sit, they hide their faces, miserable in ignominy ! 
Wherefore in me burns an anger, not by blood to be satiated. 
Lo the palaces and the temple, lo the colony Camulodiine ! 
There they ruled, and thence they wasted all the flourishing territory, 
Thither at their will they haled the yellow-ringleted Britouess— 
Bloodily, bloodily fall the battle-axe, unexhausted, inexorable. 
Shout Icenian, Catieuchlanian, shout Coritanian, Trinobant, 
Till the victim hear within and yearn to hurry precipitously 
Like the leaf in a roaring whirlwind, like the smoke in a hurricane whirl'd. 
Lo the colony, there they rioted in the city of Ciinobeline ? 
There they drank in cups of emerald, there at tables of ebony lay. 
Rolling on their purple couches in their tender eff'eminacy. 
There they dwelt and there they rioted ; there— there — they dwell no more. 
Burst the gates, and burn the palaces, break the works of the statuary. 
Take the hoary Roman head and shatter it, hold it abominable, 
Cut the Roman boy to pieces in his lust and volitptuousness. 
Lash the maiden into swooning, me they lash'd and humiliated, 
Chop the breasts from oflf the mother, dash the brains of the little one out, 
Up my Britons, on my chariot, on my chargers, trample them under us." 

So the Queen Boadicea, standing loftily charioted. 
Brandishing in her hand a dart and rolling glances lioness-like. 
Yelled and shrieked between her daughters in her fierce volubilit}'. 
Till her people all around the royal chariot agitated. 
Madly dash'd the darts together, writhing barbarous lineaments, 
Made the noise of frosty woodlands, when they shiver in January, 
Roar'd as when the rolling breakers boom and blanch on the precipices, 
Yell'd as when the winds of winter tear an oak on a promontory. 
So the silent colony hearing her tumultuous adversaries 
Clash the darts and on the buckler beat with rapid unanimous hand, 
Thought on all her evil tyrannies, all her pitiless avarice, 
Till she felt the heart within her fall and flutter tremulously. 
Then her pulses at the clamoring of her enemy fainted away. 
Out of evil evil flourishes, out of tyranny tyranny buds. 
Ran the land with Roman slaughter, multitudinous agonies. 
Perish'd many a maid and matron, many a valorous legionary. 
Fell the colony, city and citadel, Loudon, Veriilam, Camulodiiue. 



IN QUANTITY. 

MILTON. 

Alcaics. 

O miguty-moutu'd inventor of harmonies, 
O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity, 
God-gifted organ-voice of England, 

Milton, a name to resound for ages , 
Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, 
Starr'd from Jehovah's gorgeous armories, 
Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean 

Rings to the roar of an angel onset — 
Me rather all that bowery loneliness, 
The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring. 
And bloom profuse and cedar arches 
Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean, 
Where some refulgent sunset of India 
Streams o'er a rich ambrosial ocean isle, 
And crimson-hued the stately palmwoods 
Whisper in odorous heights of even. 



Hendecasyllabics. 
O von chorus of indolent reviewers, 
Irresponsible, indolent reviewers. 
Look, I come to the test, a tiny poem 
J All composed in a metre of Catullus, 
All in quantity, careful of my motion. 
Like the skater on ice that hardly bears him. 
Lest I fall unawares before the people. 
Waking lauglfffer in indolent reviewers. 
Should I flounder awhile without a tumble 
Thro' this metrification of Catullus, 
They should speak to me not without a welcomi 
All that chorus of indolent reviewers. 
Hard, hard, hard is it, only not to tumble. 
So fentastical is the dainty metre. 
Wherefore slight me not wholly, nor believe nv 
Too presumptuous, indolent reviewers. 
O blatant Magazines, regard me rather — 
Since I blush to belaud myself a moment— 
As some rare little rose, a piece of inmost 
Horticultural art, or half coquette-like 
Maiden, not to be greeted unbenignly. 



208 



THE COMING OF AETHUR. 



SPECIMEN OF A TRANSLATION OF THE 
ILIAD IN BLANK VERSE. 

So Hector said, and sea-Ilke roar'd his host; 
Then loosed their sweating horses from the yoke 
And each beside his chariot bound his own; 
And oxen from the city, and goodly sheep 
In haste they drove, and honey-hearted wine 
And bread from out the houses brought, and heap'd 
Their firewood, and the winds from off the plain 
Roll'd the rich vapor far iuto the heaven. 
And these all night upon the "bridge of war 
Sat glorying; many a fire before them blazed: 
As when in heaven the stars about the moon 
Look beautiful, when all the winds ai-e laid, 
And every height comes out, and jutting peak 
And valley, and the immeasurable heavens 
Break open to their highest, and all the stars 
Shine, and th^ Shepherd gladdens in his heart : 
30 many a fire between the ships and stream 
Of Xanthus blazed before the towers of Troy, 
A thousand on the plain ; and close by each 
Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire ; 
And cliamping golden grain, the horses stood 
Hard by their chariots, waiting for the dawn.t 

Iliad, viii. 542-561. 



THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 

Leodogran, the King of Caraeliard, 
Had one fair daughter, and none other child ; 
And she was fairest of all flesh on earth, 
Guinevere, and in her his one delight. 

For many a petty king ere Arthur came 
Ruled in this isle, and ever waging war 
Each upon other, wasted all the land; 
And still from time to lime the heathen host 
Swarm'd overseas, and harried what was left. 
And so there grew great tracts of wilderness, 
Wherein the beast was ever more and more, 
But man was less and less, till Arthur came. 
For first Aurelius lived and fought and died, 
And after him King Uther fought and died. 
But either fail'd to make the kingdom one. 
And after these King Arthur for a space. 
And thro' the puissance of his Table Round, 
Drew all their petty princedoms under him, 
Their king and head, and made a realm, and reign'd. 

And thus the land of Cameliard was waste, 
Thick with wet woods, and many a beast therein, 
And none or few to scare or chase the beast ; 
So that wild dog and wolf and boar and bear 
Came night and day, and rooted in the fields. 
And wallow'd in the gardens of the king. 
And ever and anon the wolf would steal 
The children and devour, but now and then, 
Her own brood lost or dead, lent her fierce tent « 
To human sucklings ; and the children, housed 
In her foul den, there at their meat would growl 
And mock their foster-mother on fepr feet. 
Till, straighten'd, they grew up to wolf-like men, 
Worse than the wolves: and King Leodogran 
Groan'd for the Roman legions here again. 
And Ooesar's eagle : then his brother king, 
Rience, assail'd him: last a heathen horde, 
Reddening the sun with smoke and earth with blood, 
And on the spike that split the mother's heart 
Spitting the child, brake on him, till, amazed, 
He knew not whither he should turn for aid. 

* Or, ridge. 

t Or more literally, — 

And eating hoary grain and pulse the steeds 
Stood by their cars, waiting the throned morn. 



But— for he heard of Arthur newly crown'd, 
Tho' not without an uproar made by those 
Who cried, "He is not Uther's son" — the king 
Sent to him, saying, "Arise, and help us thou! 
For here between the man and beast we die." 

And Arthur yet had done no deed of arms, 
But heard the call, and came: and Guiuevere 
Stood by the castle walls to watch him pass ; 
But since he neither wore on helm or shield 
The golden symbol of his kinglihood, 
But rode a simple knight among his knight.?, 
And many of these in richer arms than he, 
She saw him not, or mark'd not, if she saw. 
One among many, tho' his face was bare. 
But Arthur, looking downward as he past, 
Felt the light of her eyes into his life 
Smite on the sudden, yet rode on, and pitch'd 
His tents beside the forest: and he drave 
The heathen, and he slew the beast, and fell'd 
The forest, and let in the sun, and made 
Broad pathways for the hunter and the knight, 
And so returned. 

For while he linger'd there, 
A doubt that ever smoulder'd in the hearts 
Of those great Lords and Barons of his realm 
Flash'd forth and into war : for most of these 
Made head against him, crying, "Who is he 
That he should rule us? who hath proven him 
King Uther's son ? for lo ! we look at him. 
And find nor face nor bearing, limbs nor voice, 
Are like to those of Uther whom we knew. 
This is the eon of Gorlois, not the king. 
This is the eon of Anton, not the king." 

And Arthur, passing thence to battle, felt 
Travail, and throes and agonies of the life. 
Desiring to be jolu'd with Guinevere ; 
And thinking as he rode, "Her father said 
That there between the man and beast they die. 
Shall I not lift her from this land of beasts 
Up to my throne, and side by side with me? 
What happiness to reign a lonely king, 
Vext — O ye stars that shudder over me, 

earth, that soundest hollow under me, 

Vext with waste dreams ? for saving I be join'd 
To her that is the fairest under heaven, 

1 seem as nothing in the mighty world. 
And cannot will my will, nor work my work 
Wholly, nor make myself in mine own realm 
Victor and lord; but were I join'd with her, 
Then might we live together as one life. 
And reigning with one will in everything 
Have power on this dark land to lighten it, 
And power on this dead world to make it live." 

And Arthur from the field of battle sent 
Ulfius, and Brastias, and Bedivere, 
His new-made knights, to King Leodogran, 
Saying, " If 1 in aught have served thee well, 
Give me thy daughter Guinevere to wife." 

Whom when he heard, Leodogran In heart 
Debating— "How should I that am a king. 
However much he holp me at my need. 
Give my one daughter saving to a king, 
And a king's son"— lifted his voice, and call'd 
A hoary man, his chamberlain, to whom 
He trusted ail things, and of him required 
His counsel : " Knowest thou aught of Arthur's birth ?' 

Then spake the hoary chamberlain and said. 
"Sir king, there be but two old men that know: 
And each is twice as old as I; and one 
Is Merlin, the wise man that ever served 
King Uther thro' his magic art; and one 
Is Merlin's master (so they call him) Bleys, 



THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 



209 



Who taught him magic; but the scholar rau 
Before the master, and so far, that Bleys 
Laid magic by, and sat him down, and wrote 
All things and whatsoever Merlin did 
In one great anual-book, where after years 
Will learu the secret of our Arthur's birth." 

To whom the king Leodrogan reolied, 
" O friend, had I been holpen half as well 
By this King Arthur as by thee to-day. 
Then beast and man had had their share of me : 
But summon here before us yet once more 
Ulfius, and Brastias, and Bedivere." 

Then, when they came before him, the king said, 
"I have seen the cuckoo chased by lesser fowl, 
And reason iu the chase : but wherefore now 
Do these your lords stir up the heat of war, 
Some calling Arthur born of Gorlois, 
Others of Anton ? Tell me, ye yourselves. 
Hold ye this Arthur for King Uther's son?" 

And Ulfius and Brastias answer'd, "Ay." 
Then Bedivere, the first of all his knights. 
Knighted by Arthur at his crowning, spake, — 
For bold iu heart and act and word was he. 
Whenever slander breathed against the king, — 

"Sir, there be many rumors on this head: 
For there be those who hate him iu their hearts, 
Call him baseboru, and since his ways are sweet, 
And theirs are bestial, hold him less than man : 
And there be those who deem him more than man, 
And dream he dropt from heaven : but my belief 
In all this matter — so ye care to learn — 
Sir, for ye know that in King Uther's time 
The prince and warrior Gorlois, he that held 
Tintagil ■castle by the Cornish sea, 
Was wedded with a winsome wife, Ygerne: 
And daughters had she borne him, — one whereof 
Lot's wife, the Queen of Orkney, Bellicent, 
Hath^ver like a loyal sister cleaved 
To Arthur, — but a son she had not borne. 
And Uther cast upon her eyes of love : 
But she, a stainless wife to Gorlois, 
So loathed the bright dishonor of his Jove 
That Gorlois and King Uther went to war: 
And overthrown was Gorlois and slain. 
Then Uther in his wrath and heat besieged 
Ygerne within Tiutagil, where her men, 
Seeing the mighty swarm about their walls, 
Left her and fled, and Uther enter'd in. 
And there was none to call to but himself. 
So, compass'd by the power of the king, 
Enforced she was to wed him in her tears. 
And with a shameful swiftness; afterward, 
Not many moons, King Uther died himself, 
Moaning and wailing for an heir to rule 
After him, lest the realm should go to wrack. 
And that same night, the night of the new j'ear. 
By reason of the bitterness and grief 
That vest his mother, all before his time 
Was Arthur born, and all as soon as born 
Deliver'd at a secret postern-gate 
To Merlin, to be holden far apart 
Until his hour should come ; because the lords 
Of that fierce day were as the lords of this, 
Wild beasts, and surely would have torn the child 
Piecemeal among them, had they known ; for each 
But sought to rule for his own self and hand, 
And many hated Uther for the sake 
Of Gorlois : wherefore Merlin took the child, 
And gave him to Sir Anton, an old knight 
And ancient friend of Uther : and his wife 
Nursed the young prince, and rear'd him with her 

own ; 
And no man knew : and ever since the lords 
Have foughten like wild beasts among themselves, 
14 



So that the realm has gone to wrac'jj: but now. 
This year, when Merlin (for his hour had come) 
Brought Arthur forth, and set him in the hall, 
Proclaiming, 'Here is Uther's heir, your king,' 
A hundred voices cried, 'Away with him! 
No king of ours! a son of Gorlois he: 
Or else the child of Anton and no king, 
Or else baseboru.' Yet Merlin thro' his craft 
And while the people clamor'd for a king. 
Had Arthur crown'd ; but after, the great lords 
Banded, and so brake out in open war." 

Then while the king debated with himself 
If Arthur were the child of shamefulness, 
Or born the sou of Gorlois, after death. 
Or Uther's son, and born before his time. 
Or whether there were truth in anything 
Said by these three, there came to Cameliard, 
With Gawain and young Modred, her two sous, 
Lot's wife, the Queen of Orkney, Bellicent ; 
Whom as he could, not as he would, the king 
Made feast for, sayiug, as they sat at meat, 

"A doubtful throne is Ice on summer seas— 
Ye come from Arthur's court: think ye this king — 
So few his knights, however brave they be — 
Hath body enow to beat his foemen down f " 

"O king," she cried, "and I will tell thee: few, 
Few, but all brave, all of one mind with him; 
For I was near him wheu the savage yells 
Of Uther's peerage died, and Arthur sat 
Crowned on the dais, and his warriors cried, 
'Be thou the king, and we will work thy will 
Who love thee.' Then the king in low deep tones. 
And simple words of great authority, 
Bound them by so strait vows to his own self, 
That when they rose, knighted from kneeling, some 
Were pale as at the passing of a ghost. 
Some flush'd, and others dazed, as one who wakes 
Half-blinded at the coming of a light. 

" But when he spake and cheered his Table Eound 
With large, divine, and comfortable words 
Beyond my tougue to tell thee— I beheld 
From eye to eye thro' all their Order flash 
A momentary likeness of the king ; 
And ere it left their faces, thro' the cross 
And those around it and the crucified, 
Down from the casement over Arthur, smote 
Flame-color, vert, and azure, in three rays. 
One falling upon each of three fair queens, 
Who stood in silence near his throne, the friends 
Of Arthur, gazing on him, tall, with bright, 
Sweet faces, who will help him at his need. 

" And there I saw mage Merlin, whose vast wit 
And hundred winters are but as the hands 
Of loyal vassals toiling for their liege. 

" And near him stood the Lady of the lake,— 
Who knows a subtler magic than his own,— 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 
She gave the king his huge cross-hilted sword, 
Whereby to drive the heathen out: a mist 
Of incense curl'd about her, and her face 
Welluigh was hidden in the minster gloom. 
But there was heard among the holy hymns 
A voice as of the waters, for she dwells 
Down in a deep, calm, whatsoever stoi'ms 
May shake the world, and, wheu the surface rolls. 
Hath power to walk the waters like our Lord. 

"There likewise I beheld Excalibur 
Before him at his crowning borne, the sword 
That rose from out the bosom of the lake, 
And Arthur rcw'd across and took it,— rich 
With jewels, elfin Ur;m, on the hilt, 



210 



THE COMING OF ARTHUE. 



Bewildering heart and eye, — the blade so bright 
That men are blinded by it, — on one side, 
Graven in the oldest tongue of all this world, 
'Take me,' but turn the blade and you shall see, 
And written in the speech ye speak yourself, 
'Cast me away!' and sad was Arthur's face 
Taking it, but old Merlin counsell'd him, 
' Take thou and strike ! the time to cast away 
Is yet far off;' so this great brand the king 
Took, and by this will beat his foemen down." 

Thereat Leodogran rejoiced, but thought 
To sift his doublings to the last, and ask'd. 
Fixing full eyes of question on her face, 
"The swallow and the swift are near akin, 
But thou art closer to this noble prince, 
Being his own dear sister ;" and she said, 
" Daughter of Gorlois and Ygerne am I ;" 
"And therefore Arthur's sister," asked the King. 
She answer'd, "These be secret things," and sigu'd 
To those two sons to pass and let them be. 
And Gawain went, and breaking into song 
Sprang out, and follow'd by his flying hair 
Ran like a colt, and leapt at all he saw : 
But Modred laid his ear beside the doors. 
And there half heard ; the same that afterward 
Struck for the throne, and, striking, found his doom. 

And then the Queen made answer, "What know I? 
For dark my mother was in eyes and hair, 
And dark in hair and eyes am I ; and dark 
Was Gorlois, yea, and dark was Uther too, 
Wellnigh to blackness, but this king is fair 
Beyond the race of Britons and of men. 
Moreover always in my mind I hear 
A cry from out the dawning of my life, 
A mother weeping, and I hear her say, 
' Oh that ye had some brother, pretty one. 
To guard thee on the rough ways of the world.' " 

"Ay," said the King, "and hear ye such a cry? 
But when did Arthur chance upon thee flr.st?" 

"O king!" she cried, "and I will tell thee true: 
He found me first when yet a little maid — 
Beaten I had been for a little fault 
Whereof I was not guilty ; and out I ran 
And flung myself down on a bank of heath, 
And hated this fair world and all therein, 
And wept, and wish'd that I were dead ; and he — 
I know not whether of himself he came, 
Or brought by Merlin, who, they say, can walk 
Unseen, at pleasure — he was at my side. 
And spake sweet words, and comforted my heart, 
And dried my tears, being a child with me. 
And many a time he came, and evermore. 
As I grew, greater grew with me ; and sad 
At times he seem'd, and sad with him was I, 
Stern too at times, and then I loved him not, 
But sweet again, and then I loved him well. 
And now of late I see him less and less. 
But those first days had golden hours for me. 
For then I surely thought he would be king. 

"But let me tell thee now another tale: 
For Bleys, our Merlin's master, as they say, 
Died but of late, and sent his cry to me, 
To hear him speak before he left his life. 
Shrunk like a fairy changeling lay the mage. 
And when I enter'd, told me that himself 
And Merlin ever served about the king, 
Uther, before he died, and on the night 
When Uther in Tintagil past away 
Moaning and wailing for an heir, the two 
Left the still king, and passing forth to breathe, 
Then from the castle gateway by the chasm 
Descending thro' the dismal night— a night 
In which the bounds of heaven and earth were lost- 



Beheld, so high upon the dreary deeps 
It seem'd in heaven — a ship, the shape thereof 
A dragon wiug'd, and all from stem to stern 
fright witli a shining people on the decks, 
And gone as soon as seen : and then the two 
Dropt to the cove and watch'd the great sea fall. 
Wave after wave, each mightier than the last. 
Till, last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep 
And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged 
Roaring, and all the wave was in a flame: 
And down the wave and in the flame was borne 
A naked babe, and rode to Merlin's feet. 
Who stoopt and caught the babe, and cried, 'The 

King! 
Here is an heir for Uther !' and the fringe 
Of that great breaker, sweeping up the strand, 
Lash'd at the wizard as he spake the word. 
And all at once all round him rose in fire, 
So that the child and he were clothed in fire. 
And presently thereafter follow'd calm, 
Free sky and stars: 'And this same child,' he said, 
' Is he who reigns ; nor could I part in peace 
Till this were told.' And saying this the seer 
Went thro' the strait and dreadful pass of death. 
Not ever to be question'd any more 
Save on the further side ; but when I met 
Merlin, and ask'd him if these things were truth,— 
The shining dragon and the naked child 
Descending in the glory of the seas,— 
He laugh'd as is his wont, and answer'd me 
In riddling triplets of old time, and said : 

" ' Rain, rain, and sun ! a rainbow in the sky ! 
A young man will be wiser by and by: 
An old man's wit may wander ere he die. 

Rain, rain, and sun ! a rainbow on the lea ! 
And truth is this to me, and that to thee ; 
And truth or clothed or naked let it be. 

Rain, sun, and rain ! and the free blossom blows : 
Sun, rain, and sun ! and where is he who knows? 
From the great deep to the great deep he goes.' 

"So Merlin, riddling, anger'd me; but thou 
Fear not to give this king thine only child, 
Guinevere : so great bards of him will sing 
Hereafter, and dark sayings from of old 
Ranging and ringing thro' the minds of men, 
And cciio'd by old folks beside their fires 
For comfort after their wage-work is done, 
Speak of the king ; and Merlin in our time 
Hath spoken also, not in jest, and sworn, 
Tho' men may wound him, that he will not die, 
But pass, again to come ; and then or now 
Utterly smite the heathen underfoot. 
Till these and all men hail him for their king." 

She spake and King Leodogran rejoiced. 
But musing "Shall I answer yea or nay?" 
Doubted and drowsed, nodded and slept, and saw, 
Dreaming, a slope of laud that ever grew. 
Field after field, up to a height, the peak 
Haze-hidden, and thereon a phantom king. 
Now looming, and now lost ; and on the slope 
The sword rose, the hind fell, the herd was driven. 
Fire glimpsed ; and all the land from roof and rick 
In drifts of smoke before a rolling wind 
Stream'd to the peak, and mingled with the haze 
And made it thicker ; while the phantom king 
Sent out at times a voice ; and here or there 
Stood one who pointed toward the voice, the rest 
Slew on and burnt, crying, "No king of ours. 
No son of Uther, and no king of ours ;" 
Till with a wink his dream was changed, the haze 
Descended, and the solid earth became 
As nothing, and the king stood out in lieaveu, 
Crown'd; and Leodogran awoke, and sent 
Ulfius, and Brastias, and Bodivere 
Back to the court of Arthur answering yex 



THE HOLY GRAIL. 



211 



Thea Artlmr charged his warrior whom he loved 
And houor'd most, Sir Lancelot, to ride fortli 
And bring the Queen ; — and watch'd him from the 

gates : 
And Lancelot past away among the flowers, 
(For then was latter April) and return'd 
Among the flowers, in May, with Guinevere. 
To whom arrived, by Dnbric the high saint, 
Chief of the church in Britain, and before 
The stateliest ot her altar-shrines, the king 
That morn was married, while in stainless white, 
The fair beginners of a nobler time, 
And glorying in their vows and him, his knights 
Stood round him, and rejoicing in his joy. 
And holy Dubric spread his hands and spake, 
"Eeign ye, and live and love, and make the world 
Other, and may thy Queen be one with thee. 
And all this Order of thy Table Round 
Fulfill the boundless purpose of their king." 

Then at the marriage feast came in from Eome, 
The slowly-fading mistress of the world, 
Great lords, who claim'd the tribute as of yore. 
But Arthur spake, "Behold, for these have sworn 
To fight my wars, and worship me their king; 
The old order changeth, yielding place to new; 
And we that fight for our fair father Christ, 
Seeing that ye be grown too weak and old 
To drive the heathen from your Roman wall. 
No tribute will we pay:" so those great lords 
Drew back in wrath, and Arthur strove with Rome. 

And Arthur and his knighthood for a space 
Were all one will, and thro' that strength the king 
Drew in the petty princedoms under him. 
Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame 
The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reign'd- 



THE HOLY GRAIL. 

From noisefnl arms, and acts of prowess done 
In tournament or tilt, Sir Percivale, 
Whom Arthur and his knighthood call'd The Pure, 
Had pass'd into the silent life of prayer. 
Praise, fast, and alms ; and leaving for the cowl 
The helmet in an abbey f;ir away 
From Camelot, there, and not long after, died. 

And one, a fellow-monk among the rest, 
Ambrosius, loved him much beyond the rest. 
And honor'd him, and wrought into his heart 
A way by love that waken'd love within, 
To answer that which came : and as they sat 
Beneath a world-old yew-tree, darkening half 
The cloisters, on a gustful April morn 
That puff'd the swaying branches into smoke 
Above them, ere the summer when he died, 
The monk Ambrosius question'd Percivale : — 

"O brother, I have seen this yew-tree smoke. 
Spring after spring, for half a hundred years: 
For never have I known the world without, 
Nor ever strayed beyond the pale: but thee. 
When first thou earnest,— such a courtesy 
Spake thro' the limbs and in the voice,— I knew 
For one of those who eat in Arthur's 'hall ; 
For good ye are and bad, and like to coins. 
Some true, some light, but every one of you 
Stamp'd with the image of the king ; and now . 
Tell me, what drove thee from the Table Round, 
My brother? was it earthly passion crost?" 

"Nay," said the knight; "for no such passion 
mine. 
But the sweet vision of the Holy Gr.ail 
Drove me from all vainglories, rivalries, 



And earthly heats that spring and sparkle out 
Among us in the jousts, while women watch 
Who wins, who falls; and waste the spiritual 

strength 
Within us, better oflfer'd up to Heaven." 

To whom the monk : " The Holy Grail !— I trust 
We are green in Heaven's eyes ; but here too much 
We moulder, — as to things without I mean, — 
Yet one of your owti knights, a guest of ours, 
Told us of this in our refectory. 
But spake with such a sadness and so low 
We heard not half of what he said. What is it ? 
The phantom of a cup that comes and goes?" 

" Nay, monk ! what phantom ?'' answer'd Percivale. 
"The cup, the cup itself, from which our Lord 
Drank at the last sad supper with his own. 
This, from the blessed land of Aromat— 
After the day of darkness, when the dead 
Went wandering o'er Moriah, the good saint, 
Arimathffian Joseph, journeying brought 
To Glastonbury, where the winter thorn 
Blossoms at Christmas, mindful of our Lord. 
And there awhile it bode ; and if a man 
Could touch or see it, he was heal'd at once. 
By faith, of all his ills ; but then the times 
Grew to such evil that the Holy cup 
Was caught away to Heaven and disappear'd." 

To whom the monk : " From our old books I 
know 
That Joseph came of old to Glastonbury, 
And these the heathen Prince, Arviragus, 
Gave him an isle of marsh whereon to build ; 
And there he built with wattles from the marsh 
A little lonely church in days of yore. 
For so they say, these books of ours, but seem 
Mute of this miracle, far as I have read. 
But who first saw the holy thing to-day ?" 

"A woman," answered Percivale, "a nun. 
And one no further off in blood from me 
Than sister ; and if ever holy maid 
With knees of adoration wore the stone, 
A holy maid ; tho' never maiden glow'd. 
But that was in her earlier maidenhood, 
With such a fervent flame of human love, 
Which being rudely blunted glanced and shot 
Only to holy things : to prayer and praise 
She gave herself, to fast and alms ; and yet. 
Nun as she was, the scandal of the Court, 
Sin against Arthur and the Table. Round, 
And the strange sound of an adulterous race 
Across the iron grating of her cell 
Beat, and she pray'd and fasted all the more. 

"And he to whom she told her sins, or what 
Her all but utter whiteness held for sin, 
A man wellnigh a hundred winters old. 
Spake often with her of the Holy Grail, 
A legend handed down thro' five or six, 
And each of these a hundred winters old. 
From our Lord's time: and when King Arthur made 
His table round, and all men's hearts became 
Clean for a season, surely he had thought 
That now the Holy Grail would come again ; 
But sin broke out. Ah, Christ, that it would come, 
And heal the world of all their wickedness ! 
' O Father !' asked the maiden, ' might it come 
To me by prayer and fasting?' 'Nay,' said he, 
'I know not, for thy heart is pure as snow.' 
And so she pray'd and fasted, till the sun 
Shone, and the wind blew, thro' her, and I thotight 
She might have risen and floated when I saw her. 

"For on a day she sent to speak with me. 
And when she came to speak, behold her eyes 



212 



THE HOLY GRAIL. 



Beyond my knowing of them, beautiful, 

Beyond all knowing of them, wonderful. 

Beautiful in the light of holiness. 

And 'O my brother, Percivale,' she said, 

' Sweet brother, I have seen the Holy Grail : 

For, waked at dead of night, I heard a sound 

As of a silver horn from o'er the hills 

Blown, and I thought it is not Arthur's use 

To hunt by moonlight, and the slender sound 

As from a distance beyond distance grew 

Coming upon me,— O never harp nor horn, 

Nor aught we blow with breath, or touch with hand. 

Was like that music as it came; and then 

Stream'd thro' my cell a cold and silver beam. 

And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail, 

Rose-red with beatings in it, as if alive. 

Till all the white walls of my cell were dyed 

With rosy colors leaping on the wall; 

And then the music faded, and the Grail 

Passed, and the beam decay'd, and from the walla 

The rosy quiverings died into the night. 

So now the Holy Thing is here again 

Among us, brother, fast thou too and pray, 

And tell thy brother knights to fast and pray, 

That so perchance the vision may be seen 

By thee and those, and all the world be heal'd.' 

"Then leaving the pale nun, I spake of this 
To all men ; and myself fasted and pray'd 
Always, and many among ns many a week 
Fasted and pray'd even to the uttermost. 
Expectant of the wonder that would be. 

" And one there was among us, ever moved 
Among us in white armor, Galahad. 
'God make thee good as thou art beautiful,' 
Said Arthur, when he dubb'd him knight ; and none, 
la so young youth, was ever made a knight 
Till Galahad ; and this Galahad, when he heard 
My sister's vision, fill'd me with amaze ; 
His eyes became so like her own, they seem'd 
Hers, and himself her brother more than I. 

"Sister or brother none had he; but some 
Call'd him a son of Lancelot, and some said 
Begotten by enchantment, — chatterers, they. 
Like birds of passage piping up and down 
That gape for flies, — we know not whence they come ; 
For when was Lancelot wanderingly lewd? 

"But she, the wan, sweet maiden shore away 
Clean from her forehead all that wealth of hair 
Which made a silken mat-work for her feet; 
And out of this she plaited broad and long 
A strong sword-belt, and wove with silver thread 
And crimson in the belt a strange device, 
A crimson grail within a silver beam ; 
And saw the bright boy-knight, and bound it on him 
Saying, 'My knight, my love, my knight of heaven. 
O thou, my love, whose love is one with mine, 
I, maiden, round thee, maiden, bind my belt. 
Go forth, for thou shalt see what I have seen. 
And break thro' all, till one will crown thee king 
Far in the spiritual city :' and as she spake 
She sent the deathless passion in her eyes 
Thro' him, and made him hers, and laid her mind 
On him, and he believed in her belief. 

"Then came a year of miracle: O brother. 
In our great hall there stood a vacant chair, 
Fashion'd by Merlin ere he past away, 
And carven with strange figures ; and in and out 
The figures, like a serpent, ran a scroll 
Of letters in a tongue no man could read. 
And Merlin call'd it 'The Siege perilous,' 
Perilous for good and ill; 'for there,' he said, 
'No man could sit but he should lose himself:' 
And once by mi^advertence Merlin sat 



In his own chair, and so was lost ; but he, 
Galahad, when he heard of Merlin's doom. 
Cried, 'If I lose myself I save myself I' 

"Then on a summer night it came to pass, 
While the great banquet lay along the hall. 
That Galahad vrould sit down in Merlin's chair. 

" And all at once, as there we sat, we heard 
A cracking and a riving of the roofig. 
And rending, and a blast, and overhead 
Thunder, and in the thunder was a cry. 
And in the blast there smote along the hall 
A beam of light seven times more clear than day : 
And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail 
All over cover'd with a luminous cloud. 
And none might see who bare it, and it past. 
But every knight beheld his fellow's face 
As in a glory, and all the knights arose. 
And staring each at other like dumb men 
Stood, till I found a voice and sware a vow. 

"I sware a vow before them all, that I 
Because I had not seen the Grail, would ride 
A twelvemonth and a day in quest of it. 
Until I found and saw it, as the nun 
My sister saw it ; and Galahad sware the vow. 
And good Sir Bors, our Lancelot's cousin, sware, 
And Lancelot sware, and many among the knights, 
And Gawain sware, and louder than the rest. 

Then spake the monk Ambrosius, asking him, 
"What said the king? Did Arthur take the vow?" 

"Nay, for, my lord, (said Percivale,) the king 
Was not in Hall : for early that same day, 
■'Scaped thro' a cavern from a bandit hold. 
An outraged maiden sprang into the hall 
Cryiug on help; for all her shining hair 
Was smear'd with earth, and either milky arm 
Red-rent with hooks of bramble, and all she wore 
Torn as a sail, that leaves the rope, is torn 
In tempest: so the king arose and went 
To smoke the scandalous hive of those wild bees 
That made such honey in his realm : howbeit 
Some little of this marvel he too saw. 
Returning o'er the plain that then began 
To darken under Camelot ; whence the king 
Look'd up, calling aloud, ' Lo there I the roofs 
Of our great Hall are rolled in thunder-smoke ! 
Pray Heaven they be not smitten by the bolt.' 
For dear to Arthur was that hall of ours. 
As having there so oft with all his knights 
Feasted, and as the stateliest under heaven. 

"O brother, had you known our mighty hall, 
Which Merlin built for Arthur long ago 1 
For all the sacred Mount of Camelot, 
And all the dim rich city, roof by roof. 
Tower after tower, spire beyond spire, 
By grove, and garden-lawn, and rushing brook. 
Climbs to the mighty hall that Merlin built. 
And four great zones of sculpture, set betwixt 
With many a mystic symbol, gird the hall ; 
And in the lowest beasts are slaying men, 
And in the second men are slaying beasts. 
And on the third are warriors, perfect men. 
And on the fourth are men with growing wings, 
And over all-one statue in the mould 
Of Arthur, made by Merlin, with a crown. 
And peak'd wings pointed to the Northern Star. 
And eastward fronts the statue, and the crown 
And both the wings are made of gold, and flame 
At sunrise till the people in far fields. 
Wasted so often by the heathen hordes. 
Behold it, crying, ' We have still a king.' 

"And, brother, had you known our hall within, 
Broader and higher than any in all the lands! 



THE HOLY GEAIL. 



213 



Where twelve great winclows blazon Arthur's wars, 
And all the light that falls upou the board 
Streams thro' the twelve great battles of our king. 
Nay, one there is, and at the eastern end, 
Wealthy with wandering lines of mount and mere. 
Where Arthur finds the brand Excalibur. 
And also one to the west, and counter to it, 
And blank : and who shall blazon it ? when and how ? 

then, perchance, when all our wars are done. 
The brand Excalibur will be cast away. 

"So to this hall full quickly rode the king. 
In horror lest the work by Merlin wrought. 
Dreamlike, should on the sudden vanish, wrapt 
In unremorseful folds of rolling tire. 
And in he rode, and up I glanced, and saw 
The golden dragon sparkling over all : 
And many of those who burnt the hold, their arms 
Haek'd, and their foreheads grimed with smoke, and 

sear'd, 
Follow'd, and in among bright faces, ours 
Full of the vision, prest: and then the King 
Spake to me, being nearest, 'Percivale,' 
(Because the Hall was all in tumult — some 
Vowing, and some protesting,) 'what is this?' 

" O brother, when I told him what had chanced. 
My sister's vision, and the rest, his face 
Darken'd, as I have seen it more than once. 
When some brave deed seem'd to be done in vain. 
Darken ; and ' Woe is me, my knights !' he cried, 
'Had I been here, ye had not sworn the vow.' 
Bo^d was mine answer, ' Had thyself been here. 
My king, thou wouldst have sworn.' 'Yea, yea,' 

said he, 
'Art thou so bold and hast not seen the grail?' 

" 'Nay, Lord, I heard the sound, I saw the light. 
But since I did not see the Holy Thing, 

1 sware a vow to follow it till I saw.' 

"Then when he asked us, knight by knight, if any 
Had seen it, all their answers were as one, 
'Nay, Lord, and therefore have we sworn our vows.' 

'"Lo now,' said Arthur, 'have ye seen a cloud? 
What go ye into the wilderness to see ?' 

" Then Galahad on the sudden, and in a voice 
Shrilling along the hall to Arthur, call'd, 
'But I, Sir Arthur, saw the Holy Grail, 
I saw the Holy Grail and heard a cry — 
O Galahad, and O Galahad, follow me.' 

'"Ah, Galahad, Galahad,' said the King, 'for such 
As thou art is the vision, not for these. 
Thy holy nun and thou have seen a sign ; 
Holier is none, my Percivale, than she,— 
A sign to maim this Order which I made. 
But you, that follow but the leader's bell,' 
(Brother, the king was hard upou his knights,) 
'Taliessin is our fullest throat of song. 
And one hath sung and all the dumb will sing. 
Lancelot is Lancelot, and hath overborne 
Five knights at once, and every younger knight, 
Unproven, holds himself as Lancelot, 
Till, overborne by one, he learns, — and ye. 
What are ye? Galahads,— no, nor Percivales' 
(For thus it pleased the king to range me close 
After Sir Galahad); 'nay,' said he, 'but men 
With strength and will to right the wrong'd, of power 
To lay the sudden heads of violence flat, 
Knights that in twelve great battles splash'd and dyed 
The strong White Horse in his own heathen blood, — 
But one hath seen, and all the blind will see. 
Go, since your vows are sacred, being made, — 
Yet, for ye know the. cries of all my realm 
Pass thro' this hall, how often, O my knights, 



Your places being vacant at my side, 
The chance of noble deeds will come and go 
Unchallenged, while you follow wandering fires 
Lost in the quagmire : many of you, yea most. 
Return no more : ye think I show myself 
Too dark a prophet : come now, let us meet 
The morrow morn once more in one full field 
Of gracious pastime, that once more the king, 
Before you leave him for this quest, may count 
The yet unbroken strength of all his knights, 
Rejoicing in that Order which he made.' 

" So when the sun broke next from underground. 
All the great table of our Arthur closed 
And clash'd in such a tourney and so full, 
So many lances broken,— never yet 
Had Camelot seen the like since Arthur came. 
And I myself and Galahad, for a strength 
Was in us from the vision, overthrew 
So many knights that all the people cried, 
And almost burst the barriers in their heat, 
Shouting ' Sir Galahad and Sir Percivale !' 

"But when the next day brake from under- 
ground, — 

brother, had yon known our Camelot, 
Built by old kings, age after age, so old 

TLe king himself had fears that it would fall. 

So strange and rich, and dim ; for where the roofs 

Totter'd toward each other in the sky 

Met foreheads all along the street of those 

Who watch'd us pass; and lower, and where the 

long 
Rich galleries, lady-laden, weigh'd the necks 
Of dragons clinging to the crazy walls. 
Thicker than drops from thunder showers of flowers 
Fell, as we past ; and men and boys astride 
On wyvern, lion, dragon, griffin, swan. 
At all the corners, named us each by name. 
Calling ' God speed 1' but in the street below 
The knights and ladies wept, and rich and poor 
Wept, and the king himself could hardly speak 
For sorrow, and in the middle street the queen, 
Who rode by Lancelot, wail'd and shriek'd aloud, 
'This madness has come on us for our sins.' 
And then we reach'd the weirdly sculptured gate, 
M^here Arthur's wars were render'd mystically, 
And thence departed every one his way. 

"And I was lifted up in heart, and thought 
Of all my late-shown prowess in the lists. 
How my strong lance had beaten down the knights, 
So many and famous names ; and never yet 
^Jad heaven appear'd so blue, nor earth so green. 
For all my blood danced in me, and I knew 
That I should light upon the Holy Grail. 

"Thereafter, the dark warning of our king, 
That most of us would follow wandering fires, 
Came like a driving gloom across my mind. 
Then every evil word I had spoken once, 
And every evil thought I had thought of old, 
And every evil deed I ever did, 
Awoke and cried, ' This quest is not for thee.' 
And lifting up mine eyes, I found myself 
Alone, and in a land of sand and thorns, 
And I was thirsty even unto death ; 
And I, too, cried, 'This quest is not for thee.' 

"And on I rode, and when I thought my thirst 
Would slay me, saw deep lawns, and then a brook. 
With one sharp rapid, where the crisping white 
Play'd ever back upon the sloping wave. 
And took both ear and eye ; and o'er the brook 
Were apple-trees, and apples by the brook 
Fallen, and on the lawns, 'I will rest here,' 

1 said, ' I am not worthy of the quest ;' 
But even while I drank the brook, and ate 



214 



THE HOLY GRAIL. 



The goodly apples, all these things at once 

Fell into dust, and I was left alone, 

And thirsting, in a land of sand and thorns. 

" And then behold a woman at a door 
Spinning, and fair the house whereby she sat; 
And kind the woman's eyes and innocent, 
And all her bearing gracious ; and she rose 
Opening her arms to meet me, as who should say, 
' Rest here,' but when I touched her, lo ! she too 
Fell into dust and nothing, and the house 
Became no better than a broken shed. 
And in it a dead babe ; and also this 
Fell into dust, and I was left alone. 

"And on I rode, and greater was my thirst. 
Then flash'd a yellow gleam across the world. 
And where it smote the ploughshare in the field. 
The ploughman left his ploughing, and fell down 
Before it; where it glitter'd on her pail. 
The milkmaid left her milking, and fell down 
Before it, and I knew not why ; but thought 
' The sun is rising,' tho' the sun had risen. 
Then was I ware of one that on me moved 
In golden armor, with a crown of gold 
About a casque all jewels; and his horse 
In golden armor jewell'd everywhere : 
And on the splendor came, flashing me blind ; 
And seem'd to me the Lord of all the world. 
Being so huge : but when I thought he meant 
To crush me, moving on me, lo ! he too 
Opened his arms to embrace me as he came. 
And up I went and touch'd him, and he too 
Fell into dust, and I was left alone 
And wearied in a land of sand and thorns. 

"And on I rode and found a mighty hill, 
And on the top a city wall'd: the spires 
Prick'd with incredible pinnacles into heaven. 
And by the gateway stirr'd a crowd ; and these 
Cried to me, climbing, ' Welcome, Percivale ! 
Thou mightiest and thou purest among men !' 
And glad was I and clomb, but found at top 
No man, nor any voice ; and thence I past 
Far thro' a ruinous city, and I saw 
That man had once dwelt there; but there I found 
Only one man of an exceeding age. 
'Where is that goodly company,' said I, 
' That so cried upon me ?' and he had 
Scarce any voice to answer, and yet gasp'd 
' Whence and what art thou ?' and even as he spoke 
Fell into dust, and disappear'd, and I 
Was left alone once more, and cried, in grief, 
' Lo, if I find the Holy Grail itself, , 

And touch it, it will crumble into dust.' 

" And thence I dropt into a lowly vale, 
Low as the hill was high, and where the vale 
Was lowest found a chapel, and thereby 
A holy hermit in a hermitage. 
To whom I told my phantoms, and he said: 

" ' O son, thou hast not true hnmility, 
The highest virtue, mother of them all ; 
For when the Lord of all things made Himself 
Naked of glory for His mortal change, 
" Take thou my robe," she said, " for all is thine," 
And all her form shone forth with sudden light 
So that the angels were amazed, and she 
Follow'd him down, and like a flying star 
Led on the gray-hair'd wisdom of the East ; 
But her thou hast not known : for what is this 
Thou thoughtest of thy prowess and thy sins ? 
Thou hast not lost thyself to save thyself 
As Galahad.' When the hermit made an end. 
In silver armor suddenly Galahad shone 
Before us, and against the chapel door 
Laid lance, and entered, and we knelt in prayer. 



And there the hermit slaked my burning thirst ; 
And at the sacring of the mass I saw 
The holy elements alone , but he 
'Saw ye no more? I, Galahad, saw the Grail, 
The Holy Grail, descend upon the shrine ; 
I saw the fiery face as of a child 
That smote itself into the bread, and went, 
And hither am I come; and never yet 
Hath what thy sister taught me first to see, 
This holy thing, fail'd from my side, nor come 
Cover'd, but moving with me night and day, 
Fainter by day, but always in the night 
Blood-red, and sliding down the blacken'd marsh 
Blood-red, and on the naked mountain top 
Blood-red, and in the sleeping mere below 
Blood-red : and in the strength of this I rode 
Shattering all evil customs everywhere, 
And past thro' Pagan realms, and made them mine, 
And clash'd with Pagan hordes, and bore them down. 
And broke thro' all, and in the strength of this 
Come victor : but my time is hard at hand, 
And hence I go ; and one will crown me king 
Far in the spiritual city ; and come thou too, 
For thou Shalt see the vision when 1 go.' 

" While thus he spake, his eye, dwelling on mine. 
Drew me, with power upon me, till I grew 
One with him, to believe as he believed. 
Then when the day began to wane we went. 

" Then rose a hill that none but man couid climb, 
Scarr'd with a hundred wintry watercourses,— 
Storm at the top, and, when we gaiu'd it, stornv 
Round us and death; for every moment glance* 
His silver arms and gloom'd ; so quick and thick 
The lightnings here and there to left and right 
Struck, till the dry old trunks about us, dead. 
Yea, rotten with a hundred years of death. 
Sprang into fire : and at the base we found 
On either hand, as far as eye could see, 
A great black swamp and of an evil smell, 
Part black, part whiten'd with the bones of men. 
Not to be crost save that some ancient king 
Had built a wa}', where, linked with many a bridge, 
A thousand piers ran into the Great Sea. 
And Galahad fled along them bridge by bridge. 
And every bridge as quickly as he crost 
Sprang into fire and vanish'd, tho' I yearu'd 
To follow ; and thrice above him all the heavens 
Opeu'd and blazed with thunder such as seem'd 
Shoutings of all the sons of God : and first 
At once I saw him far on the great sea. 
In silver-shining armor starry-clear; 
And o'er his head the holy vessel hung 
Clothed in white samite or a luminous cloud. 
And with ezceeding swiftness ran the boat. 
If boat it were,— I saw not whence it came. 
And when the heavens opeu'd and blazed again 
Roaring, I saw him like a silver star, — 
And had he set the sail, or had the boat 
Become a living creature clad with wings? 
And o'er his head the holy vessel hung 
Redder than any rose, a joy to me, 
For now I knew the veil had been withdrawn. 
Then in a moment when they blazed again 
Opeuing, I saw the least- of little stars 
Down on the waste, and straight beyond the star 
I saw the spiritual city and all her spires 
And gateways in a glory like one pearl, 
No larger, tho' the goal of all the saints. 
Strike from the sea ; and from the star there shot 
A rose-red sparkle to the city, and there 
Dwelt, and I knew it was the Holy Grail, 
Which never eyes on earth again shall see. 
Then fell the floods of heaven drowning the deep. 
And how my feet recross'd the deathful ridge 
No memory in me lives ; but that I touch'd 
The chapel-doors at dawn, I know ; and thence 



THE HOLY GIIAIL. 



21fi 



Taking my war-horse from the holy man, 
Ghid that no phantom vext me more, return'd 
To whence I came, the gate of Arthur's wars.'' 

" O brother," ask'd Ambrosius, "for in sooth 
These ancient books — and they would win thee- 

teem, 
Only I find not there this Holy Grail, 
With miracles and marvels like to these, 
Not all unlike; which oftentime I read. 
Who read but on my breviary .with ease, 
Till my head swims ; and then go forth and pass 
Down to the little thorpe that l^s so close, 
And almost plasterd like a martins nest 
To these old walls,— and mingle with our folk ; 
And knowing every honest face of theirs, 
As well as ever shepherd knew his sheep. 
And every homely secret in their hearts. 
Delight myself with gossip and old wives, 
And Ills and aches, and teethings, lyings-iu. 
And mirthful sayings, children of the place, 
That have no meaning half a league away: 
Or lulling random squabbles v/hen they rise, 
Chaflferiugs and chatterings at the market-cross, 
Rejoice, small man, in this small world of mine. 
Yea, even in their hens and in their eggs : 

brother, saving this Sir Galahad 

Came ye on none but phantoms in your quest, 
No man, no woman ?" 

Then Sir Percivale : 
"All men to one so bound by such a vow 
And women were as phantoms. O my brother, 
Why wilt thou shame me to confess to thee 
How far 1 falter'd from my quest and vow ? 
For after 1 had lain so many nights 
A bedmate of the snail and eft and snake. 
In grass and burdock, I was changed to wan 

, And meagre, and the vision had not come. 

And then I chanced upon a goodly town 
With one great dwelling in the middle of it ; 
Whither I made, and there was I disarmed 
By maidens each as fair as any flower : 
But when they led me into hall, behold 
The Princess of that castle was the one. 
Brother, and that one only, who had ever 
Made my heart leap ; for when I moved of old 
A slender page about her father's hall. 
And she a slender maiden, all my heart 
Went after her with longing: yet we twain 
Had never kiss'd a kiss, or vow'd a vow. 
And now I came upon her once again, 
And one had wedded her, and he was dead, 
And all his laud and wealth and state were hers. 
And while I tarried, every day she set 
A banquet richer than the day before 
By me; for all her longing and her will 
Was toward me as of old ; till one fair morn, 

1 walking to and fro beside a stream 
That flash'd across her orchard underneath 
Her castle walls, she stole upon my walk. 
And calling me the greatest of all knights. 
Embraced me, and so kiss'd me the first time. 
And gave herself and all her wealth to me. . 
Then I remember'd Arthur's warning word. 
That most of us would follow wandering fires, 
And the quest faded in my heart. Anon, 
The heads of all her people drew to me. 
With supplication both of knees and tongue. 

' We have heard of thee : thou art our greatest knight : 

Our Lady says it, and we well believe : 

Wed thou our Ladj', and rule over as, 

And thou shalt be as Arthur in our land.' 

O me, my brother ! but one night my vow 

Burnt me within, so that I rose and fled. 

But wail'd and wept, and hated mine own self. 

And ev'n the Holy Qnest, and all but her. 

Then after I was joiu'd with Galahad 

Cared not for her, nor any thing upon earth." 



Then said the monk, " Poor men, when yule is 
cold, 
Must be content to sit by little fires. 
And this am I, so that ye care for me 
Ever so little ; yea, and blest be Heaven 
That brought thee here to this poor house of ours, 
Where all the brethren are so hard, to warm 
My cold heart with a friend : but O the pity 
To find thine own first love once more,— to hold. 
Hold her a wealthy bride within thine arms. 
Or all but hold, and then— cast her aside. 
Foregoing all her sweetness, like a weed. 
For we that want the warmth of double life, 
We that are plagued with dreams of something sweet 
Beyond all sweetness in a life so rich, — 
Ah, blessed Lord, I speak too earthly-wise, 
Seeing I never stray'd beyond the cell. 
But live like an old badger in his earth, 
With earth about him everywhere, despite 
All fast and penance. Saw ye none beside, 
None of your knights?" 

"Yea so," said Percivale, 
"One night my pathway swerving east, I saw 
The pelican on the casque of our Sir Bors 
All in the middle of the rising moon : 
And toward him spurr'd and hail'd him, and he me. 
And each made joy of either; then he ask'd, 
' Where is he ? hast thou seen him— Lancelot ? Once,' 
Said good Sir Bors, 'he dash'd across me— mad, 
And maddening what he rode ; and when I cried, 
'Ridest thou then so hotly on a quest 
So holy?" Lancelot shouted, "Stay me not! 
I have been the sluggard, and I ride apace, 
For now there .is a lion in the way." 
So vanish'd.' 

"Then Sir Bors had ridden on 
Softly and sorrowing for our Lancelot. 
Because his former madness, once the talk 
And scandal of our table, had returned ; 
For Lancelot's kith and kin adore him so 
That ill to him is ill to them ; to Bors 
Bej^ond the rest: he well had been content 
Not to have seen, so Lancelot might have seen. 
The holy cup of healing; and, indeed. 
Being so clouded with his grief and love. 
Small heart was his after the holy quest : 
If God would send the vision, well : if not, 
The Quest and he were in the hands of Heaven. 

"And then, with small adventure met, Sir Bors 
Rode to the lonest tract of all the realm. 
And found a people there among their crags, 
Our race and blood, a remnant that were left 
Paynim amid their circles, and the stones 
They pitch up straight to heaveu : and their wise men 
Were strong in that old magic which can trace 
The wandering of the stars, and scofl''d at him, 
And this high quest as at a simple thing: 
Told him he foUow'd— almost Arthur's words — 
A mocking fire : ' what other fire than he. 
Whereby the blood beats, and the blossom blows. 
And the sea rolls, and all the world is warm'd ?' 
And when his answer chafed them, the rough crowd. 
Hearing he had a diflierence with their priests. 
Seized him, and bound and plunged him into a cell 
Of great piled stones ; and lying boundeu there 
In darkness thro' innumerable hours 
He heard the hollow-ringing heavens sweep 
Over him, till by miracle— what else ?— 
Heavy as it was, a great stone slipt and fell, 
Such as no wind could move : and thro' the gap 
Glimmer'd the streaming scud : then came a night 
Still as the day was loud ; and thro' the gap 
The seven clear stars of Arthur's Table Round, — 
For, brother, so one night, because they roll 
Thro' such a round in heaven, we named the stars, 



21G 



THE HOLY GKAIL. 



Rejoicing in oureelves aud iu our king,— 
And these like bright eyes of lainiliar frieuds 
In on him shone, 'And then to me, to me,' 
Said good Sir Bors, ' beyond all hopes of mine, 
Who scarce had pray'd or ask'd it for myself, — ' 
Across the seven clear stars, — O grace to me !— 
In color like the fingers of a hand 
Before a burning taper, the sweet Grail 
Glided and past, and close upon it peal'd 
A sharp quick thunder:' afterwards a maid 
Who kept our holy faith among her kin 
In secret, entering, loosed and let him go." 

To whom the monk: "And I remember now 
That pelican on the casque : Sir Bors it was 
Who spake so low and sadly at our board; 
And mighty reverent at our grace was he: 
A square-set man and honest; and his eyes, 
An out-door sign of all the wai'mth within. 
Smiled with his lips, — a smile beneath a cloud, 
But Heaven had meant it for a sunny one : 
Ay, ay. Sir Bors, who else ? but when ye reach'd 
The city, found ye all your knights return'd, 
Or was there sooth in Arthur's prophecy ? 
Tell me, and what said each, and what the king." 

Then answer'd Percivale, "And that can I, 
Brother, and truly ; since the living words 
Of so great men as Lancelot and our king 
Pass not from door to door and out again. 
But sit within the house. O, when we reach'd 
The city, our horses stumbling as they trode 
On heaps of ruin, hornless unicorns, 
Crack'd basilisks, and splinter'd cockatrices. 
And shatter'd talbots, which had left the stones 
Kaw, that they fell from, brought us to the hall. 

"And there sat Arthur on the dais-throne, 
And those that had gone out upon the Quest,— 
Wasted and worn, and but a tithe of them, — 
And those that had not, stood before the king. 
Who, when he saw me, rose, and bade me bail, 
Saying, ' A welfare in thine eye reproves 
Our fear of some disastrous chance for thee 
On hill, or plnin, at sea, or flooding ford. 
So fierce a gale made havoc here of late 
Among the strange devices of our kings ; 
Yea, shook this newer, stronger hall of ours. 
And from the statue Merlin moulded for us 
Half wrench'd a golden wing; but now — the quest, 
This vision — hast thou seen the holy cup, 
That Joseph brought of old to Glastonbury ?' 

"So when I told him all thyself hast heard, 
Ambrosius, and my fresh but fixt resolve 
To pass away into the quiet life. 
He answer'd not, but, sharply turning, ask'd 
Of Gawain, ' Gawain, was this quest for thee ?' 

"'Nay, lord,' said Gawain, 'not for such as I. 
Therefore I communed with a saintly man. 
Who made me sure the quest was not for me. 
For I was much awearied of the quest. 
But found a silk pavilion in a field. 
And merry maidens in it ; and then this gale 
Tore my pavilion from the tenting-piu. 
And blew my merry maidens all about 
With all discomfort; yea, aud but for this 
My twelvemonth aud a day were pleasant to me.' 

"He ceased; and Arthur turn'd to whom at first 
He saw not, for Sir Bors, on entering, pnsh'd 
Athwart the throng to Lancelot, caught his hand. 
Held it, and there, half hidden by him, stood. 
Until the king espied him, saying to him, , 

' Hail, Bors ! if ever loyal man and true 
Could see it, thou hast seen the Grail,' aud Bors, 
' Ask me not, for I may not speak of it, 
I saw it:' and the tears were in his eyes. 



" Then there remain'd but Lancelot, for the rest 
Spake but of sundry perils in the storm. 
Perhaps, like him of Cana in Holy Writ, 
Our Arthur kept his best until the last. 
'Thou, too, my Laucelot,' ask'd the King, 'ray friend, 
Our mightiest, hath this quest avail'd for thee ?' 

" ' Our mightiest !' answer'd Lancelot, with a groan, 
' O king !' aud when he paused, methought I spied 
A dying fire of maduess in his eyes, 
'O king, my friend, if friend of thine I be. 
Happier are those ^at welter in their sin, 
Swine in the mud, xhat cannot see for slime. 
Slime of the ditch ; — but in me lived a sin 
So strange, of such a kind, that all of pure, 
Noble, and knightly in me twined and clung 
Round that one sin, uutil the wholesome flower 
And poisonous grew together, each as each, 
Not to be pluck'd asunder ; and when thy knights 
Sware, I sware with them only in the hope 
That could I touch or see the Holy Grail 
They might be pluck'd asunder : then I spake 
To one most holy saint, who wept and said 
That save they could be pluck'd asunder all 
My quest were but iu vain ; to whom I vow'd 
That I would work according as he will'd. 
And forth I went, and while I yearu'd and strove 
To tear the twain asunder iu my heart. 
My madness came upon me as of old 
And whipt me into waste fields far away. 
There was I beaten down by little men. 
Mean knights, to whom the moving of my sword 
And shadow of my spear had been enow 
To scare them from me once ; and then I came 
All in my folly to the naked shore. 
Wide flats where nothing but coarse grasses grew. 
But such a blast, my king, began to blow. 
So loud a blast along the shore and sea. 
Ye could not hear the waters for the blast, • 

Tho' heapt in mounds aud ridges all the sea 
Drove like a cataract, aud all the sand 
Swept like a river, and the clouded heavens 
Were shaken with the motion and the sound. 
Aud blackening in the sea-foam sway'd a boat 
Half-swallow'd in it, anchor'd with a chain ; 
And in my madness to myself I said, 
"I will embark and I will lose myself, 
And in the great sea wash away my sin." 
I burst the chain, I sprang into the boat. 
Seven days I drove along the dreary deep, 
And with me drove the moon aud all the stars ; 
And the wind fell, and on the seventh night 
I heard the shingle grinding in the surge, 
And felt the boat Shock earth, and looking up . 
Behold the enchanted towers of Carbouek. 
A castle like a rock upon a rock, 
With chasm-like portals open to the sea, 
And steps that met the breaker: there was none 
Stood near it but a lion on each side, 
That kept the entry, and the moon was full. 
Then from the boat I leapt, and up the stairs. 
There drew my sword. With sudden-flaring manes 
Those two great beasts rose upright like a man. 
Each gript a shoulder, and I stood between, 
Aud, when I would have smitten them, heard a voice. 
"Doubt not, go forward; if thou doubt, the beasts 
Will tear thee piecemeal" ; then with violence 
The sword was dash'd from out my hand aud fell. 
And up into the sounding hall I past 
But nothing in the sounding hall I saw, 
No bench nor table, painting on the wall. 
Or shield of knight; only the rounded moon 
Thro' the tall oriel on the rolling sea. 
But always in the quiet house I heard, 
Clear as a lark, high o'er me as a lark, 
A sweet voice singing in the topmost tower 
To the eastward : up I climb'd a thousand steps 
With pain : as in a dream I seem'd to climb 



PELLEAS AWD ETTARRE. 



217 



Forever: at the last I reach'd a door, 
A light was in the crauuies, and I heard 
"Glory and joy and honor to onr Lord 
And to the Holy Vessel of the Grail." 
Then in my madness I essay'd the door 
It gave, and thro' a stormy glare, a heat 
As from a seveu-times-heated furnace, I, 
Blasted and burnt, and blinded as I vcas. 
With such a fierceness that I swoon'd away. 
O, yet methought I saw the Holy Grail, 
All pall'd in crimson samite, and around 
Great angels, awful shapes, and wings and eyes. 
And but for all my madness and my sin, 
And then my swooning, I had sworn I saw 
That which I saw; but what I saw was veil'd 
And cover'd; and this quest was not for me.' 

"So speaking, and here ceasing, Lancelot left 
The hall long silent, till Sir Gawain— nay, 
Brother, I need not tell thee foolish words, — 
A reckless and irreverent kuight was he. 
Now boldeu'd by the silence of his king,— 
Well, I will tell thee : ' O king, my liege,' he said, 
' Hath Gawain fail'd in any quest of thine ? 
When have I stinted stroke in foughten field? 
But as for thine, my good friend, Percivale, 
Thy holy nun and thou have driven men mad. 
Yea, made our mightiest madder than our least. 
But by mine eyes and by mine ears I swear, 
I will be deafer than the blue-ej-ed cat. 
And thrice as blind as any noonday owl, 
To holy virgins in their ecstasies. 
Henceforward.' 

"'Deafer,' said the blameless King, 
'Gawain, and blinder unto holy things 
Hope not to make thyself by idle vows. 
Being too blind to have desire to see. 
But if indeed there came a sign from heaven, 
Blessed are Bors, Lancelot, and Percivale, 
For these have seen according to their sight. 
For every fiery prophet in old times, 
And all the sacred madness of the bard, 
■Wlieu God made music thro' them, could but speak 
His music by the framework and the chord. 
And as ye saw it ye have spoken truth. 

" ' Nay— but thoti errest, Lancelot : never yet 
Could all of true and noble in knight and man 
Twine round one sin, whatever it might be. 
With such a closeness, but apart there grew. 
Save that he were the swine thou spakest of. 
Some root of knighthood and pure nobleness ; 
Whereto see thou, that it may bear its flower. 

"'And spake I not too truly, O my knights? 
Was I too dark a prophet when I said 
To those who went upon the Holy Quest 
That most of them would follow wandering fires, 
Lost in the quagmire,— lost to me and gone, 
And left me gazing at a barren board, 
And a lean order — scarce return'd a tithe^ 
And out of those to whom the vision came 
My greatest hardly will believe he saw ; 
Another hath beheld it afar off. 
And leaving human wrongs to right themselves, 
Cares but to pass into the silent life. 
And one hath had the vision face to face. 
And now his chair desires him here in vain. 
However they may crown him otherwhere. 

'"And some among you held that if the king 
Had seen the sight he would have sworn the vow: 
Not easily, seeing that the king must guard 
That which he rules, and is but as the hind 
To whom a space of land is given to plough. 
Who may not wander from the allotted field 
Before his work be done; bat, being done, 



Let visions of the night or of the day 
Come, as they will ; and many a time they come. 
Until this earth he walks on seems not earth. 
This light that strikes his eyeball. is not light, 
This air that smites his forehead is not air 

But vision — yea, his very hand and foot 

In moments when he feels he cannot die. 
And knows himself no vision to himself, 
Nor the high God a vision, nor that One 
Who rose again: ye have seen what ye have teen. 

"So spake the king: I knew not all he meant." 



PELLEAS AND ETTARRE. 

Ki>'Q Artuuk made new Icnights to fill the gap 
Left by the Holy Quest ; and as he sat 
In hall at old Caerleon, the high doors 
Were softly sunder'd, and thro' these a youth, 
Pelleas, and the sweet smell of the fields 
Past, and the sunshine came along with him. 

"Make me thy kuight, because I know, Sir King, 
All that belongs to knighthood, and I love," 
Such was his cry; for having heard the king 
Had let proclaim a tournament — the prize 
A golden circlet and a knightly sword, 
Full fain had Pelleas for his lady won 
The golden circlet, for himself the sword : 
And there were those who knew him near the king 
And promised for him : and Arthur made him knight. 

And this new kuight. Sir Pelleas of the isles — 
But lately come to his inheritance. 
And lord of many a barren isle was he — 
Riding at noon, a day or twain before, 
Across the forest call'd of Dean, to find 
Caerleon and the king, had felt the sun 
Beat like a strong knight on his helm, and reel'd 
Almost to falling from his horse ; but saw 
Near him a mound of even-sloping side. 
Whereon a hundred stately beeches grew. 
And here and there great hollies under them. 
But for a mile all round was open space. 
And fern and heath: and slowly Pelleas drew 
To that dim day, then binding his good horse 
To a tree, cast himself down ; and as he lay 
At random looking over the brown earth 
Thro' that green-glooming twilight of the grove, 
It seem'd to Pelleas that the fern without 
Burnt as a living fire of emeralds, 
So that his eyes were dazzled looking at it. 
Then o'er it crost the dimness of a cloud 
Floating, and once the shadow of a bird 
Flying, and then a fawn; and his eyes closed. 
And since he loved all maidens, but no maid 
In special, half awake he whisper'd, "W^here? 
O where ? I love thee, tho' I know thee not. 
For fair thou art and pure as Guinevere, 
And I will make thee with my spear and sword 
As famous— O my queen, my Guinevere, 
For I will be thine Arthur when we meet." 

Suddenly waken'd with a sound of talk 
And laughter at the limit of the wood. 
And glancing through the hoary boles, he saw. 
Strange as to some old prophet might have seem'd 
A vision hovering on a sea of fire. 
Damsels in divers colors like the cloud 
Of sunset and sunrise, and all of them 
On horses, and the horses richly trapt 
Breast-high in that bright line of bracken stood : 
And all the damsels talk'd confusedly. 
And one was pointing this way, and one that. 
Because the way was lost. 



218 



PELLEAS AND ETTAERE. 



Aud Pelleas rose, 
And loosed his horse, aud led him to the light. 
There she that seem'd the chief among them, said, 
"In happy time behold our pilot-star. 
Youth, we are damsels-errant, and we ride, 
Arm'd as ye see, to tilt against the knights 
There at Caerleon, but have lost our way: 
To right ? to left ? straight forward ? back again ? 
Which ? tell us quickly." 

And Pelleas gazing thought, 
"Is Guinevere herself so beautiful?" 
For large her violet eyes look'd, and her bloom 
A rosy dawn kiudled in stainless heavens, 
And round her limbs, mature in womanhood. 
And slender was her hand and small her shape. 
And but for those large eyes, the haunts of scorn, 
She might have seem'd a toy to tritle with, 
And pass and care no more. But while he gazed 
The beauty of her flesh abash'd the boy. 
As tho' it were the beauty of her soul : 
For as the base man, judging of the good. 
Puts his own baseness in him by default 
Of will and nature, so did Pelleas lend 
All the young beauty of his own soul to hers. 
Believing her; and when she spake to him, 
Stammer'd, and could not make her a reply. 
For out of the waste islands had he come. 
Where saving his own sisters he had known 
Scarce any but the women of his isles. 
Rough wives, that laugh'd and scream'd against the 

gulls. 
Makers of nets, and living from the sea. 

Then with a slow smile turn'd the lady round 
And look'd upon her people ; and as when 
A stone is flung into some sleeping tarn. 
The circle widens till it lip the marge. 
Spread the slow smile thro' all her company. 
Three knights were there among ; and they too smiled, 
Scorning him ; for the lady was Ettarre, 
And she was a great lady in her land. 

Again she said, "0 wild and of the woods, 
Knowest thou not the fashion of our speech? 
Or have the Heavens but given thee a fair face, 
Lacking a tongue?" 

"O damsel," answer'd he, 
" I woke from dreams ; aud coming out of gloom 
Was dazzled by the sudden light, and crave 
Pardon: but will ye to Caerleon? I 
Go likewise: shall I lead you to the King?" 
"Lead then," she said; and thro' the woods they 

went. 
And while they rode, the meaning in his eyes. 
His tenderness of manner, aud chaste awe. 
His broken utterances aud bashfulness. 
Were all a burden to her, and in her heart 
She mutter'd, "I have lighted on a fool, 
Raw, yet so stale !" But since her mind was bent 
On hearing, after trumpet blown, her name 
And title, "Queen of Beauty," in the lists 
Cried— and beholding him so strong, she thought 
That peradventure he will fight for me, 
Aud win the circlet: therefore flatter'd him, 
Being so gracious, that he wellnigh deem'd 
His wish by hers was echo'd ; and her knights 
And all her damsels too were gracious to him, 
For she was a great lady. 

And when they reach'd 
Caerleon, ere they past to lodging, she, 
Taking his hand, " O the strong hand," she said, 
" See ! look at mine ! but wilt thou fight for me, 
And win me this flue circlet, Pelleas, 
That I may love thee?" 



Then his helpless heart 
Leapt, and he cried, "Ay! wilt thou if I win?" 
"Ay, that will I," she answer'd, aud she laugh'd, 
And straitly nipt the hand, aud flung it from her; 
Then glanced askew at those three knights of hers, 
Till all her ladies laugh'd along with her. 

"0 happy world," thought Pelleas, "all, raeseems, 
Are happy; I the happiest of them all." 
Nor slept that night for pleasure in his blood, 
Aud green wood-ways, and eyes among the leaves ; 
Then being on the morrow knighted, sware 
To love one only. Aud as he came away. 
The men who met him rounded on their heels 
And wonder'd after him, because his face 
Shone like the countenance of a priest of old 
Against the flame about a sacrifice 
Kindled by fire from heaven : so glad was he. 

Then Arthur made vast banquets, and strange 

knights 
From the four winds came in: and each one sat, 
Tho' served with choice from air, laud, stream, and 

sea. 
Oft in mid-banquet measuring with his eyes 
His neighbor's make and might: aud Pelleas look'd 
Noble among the noble, for he dream'd 
His lady loved him, and he knew himself 
Loved of the King : and him his new-made knight 
Worshipt, whose lightest whisper moved him more 
Than all the ranged reasons of the world. 

Then blush'd aud brake the morning of the jousts. 
And this was call'd "The Tournament of Youth:" 
For Arthur, loving his young knight, withheld 
His older and his mightier from the lists. 
That Pelleas might obtain his lady's love, 
According to her promise, and remain 
Lord of the tourney. And Arthur had the jousts 
Down in the flat fleld by the shore of Usk 
Holdeu: the gilded parapets were crown'd 
With faces, and the great tower filled with eyes 
Up to the summit, and the trumpets blew. 
There all day long Sir Pelleas kept the field 
With honor : so by that strong hand of his 
The sword ana golden circlet were achieved. 

Then rang the shout his lady loved; the heat 
Of pride and glory fired her face ; her eye 
Sparkled ; she caught the circlet from his lance, 
And there before the people crown'd herself: 
So for the last time she was gracious to him. 

Then at Caerleon for a space— her look 
Bright for all others, cloudier on her knight — 
Linger'd Ettarre: and seeing Pelleas droop. 
Said Guinevere, "We marvel at thee much, 

damsel, wearing this unsunny face 

To him who won thee glory!" And she said, 
"Had ye not held your Lancelot in your bower. 
My Queen, he had not won." Whereat the Qneeu, 
As one whose foot is bitten by an ant. 
Glanced down upon her, turn'd and weut her way. 

But after, when her damsels, and herself. 
And those three knights all set their faces home, 
Sir Pelleas follow'd. She that saw him cried, 
"Damsels — and yet I should be ashamed to say it— 

1 cannot bide Sir Baby. Keep him back 
Among yourselves. Would rather that we had 
Some rough old knight who knew the worldly way. 
Albeit grizzlier than a bear, to ride 

And jest with: take him to you, keep him off. 
And pamper him with papmeat, if ye will. 
Old milky fables of the wolf and sheep. 
Such as the wholesome mothers tell their boys. 
Nay, should ye try him with a merry one 
To find his mettle, good : and if he fly us, 



PELLEAS AND ETTARRE. 



219 



Small matter ! let him." This her damsels heard, 
And mindful of her small and cruel hand, 
They, closing round him thro' the journey home, 
Acted her hest, and always from her side 
Restrain'd him with all manner of device, 
So that he could not come to speech with her. 
And when she gain'd her castle, upsprang the bridge, 
Down rang the grate of iron thro' the groove. 
And he was left alone in open field. 

"These be the ways of ladies," Pelleas thought, 
" To those who love them, trials of our faith. 
Yea, let her prove me to the uttermost, 
For loyal to the uttermost am I." 
So made his moan ; and, darkness falling, sought 
A priory not far off, there lodged, but rose 
With morning every day, and, moist or dry, 
Full-arm'd upon his charger all day long 
Sat by the walls, and no one open'd to him. 

And this persistence turn'd her scorn to ^vrath. 
Then calling her three knights, she charged them, 

"Out! 
And drive him from the walls." And out they came, 
But Pelleas overthrew them as they dash'd 
Against him one by one ; and these returu'd. 
But still he kejit his watch beneath the wall. 

Thereon her wrath hecame a hate ; and once, 
A week beyond, while walking on the walls 
With her three knights, she pointed downward, 

"Look, 
He haunts me — I cannot breathe— hesieges me ; 
Down ! strike him ! put ray hate into your strokes, 
And drive him from my walls." And down they went, 
And Pelleas overthrew them one by one ; 
And from the tower above him cried Ettarre, 
"Bind him, and bring him in." 

He heard her voice ; 
Then let the strong hand, which had overthrown 
Her minion-knights, by those he overthrew 
Be bouuden straight, and so they brought him in. 

Then when he came before Ettarre, the sight 
Of her rich beauty made him at one glance 
More bondsman in his heart than in his bonds. 
Yet with good cheer he spake, "Behold me, Lady, 
A prisoner, and the vassal of thy will ; 
And if thou keep me in thy donjon here. 
Content am I so that I see thy foce 
But once a day: for I have sworn my vows. 
And thou hast given thy promise, and I know 
That all these pains are trials of my faith, 
And that thyself, when thou hast seen me strain'd 
And sifted to the utmost, wilt at length 
Yield me thy love and know me for thy knight." 

Then she began to rail so bitterly, 
With all her damsels, he was stricken mute; 
But when she mock'd his vows and the great King, 
Lighted on words: "For pity of thine own self, ■ 
Peace, Lady, peace: is he not thine and mine?" 
"Thou fool," she said, "I neve' heard his voice 
But long'd to break away. Unbind him now. 
And thrust him out of doors ; for save he be 
Fool to the midmost marrow of his bones. 
He will return no more." And those, her three, 
Laugh'd, and unbound, and thrust him from the gate. 

And after this, a week bej'ond, again 
She call'd them, saying, "There he watches yet, 
There like a dog before his master's door! 
Kick'd, he returns: do ye not hate him, ye? 
Ye know yourselves : how can ye bide at peace, 
Affronted with his fulsome innocence? 
Are ye but creatures of the board and bed, 
No men to strike? Fall on him all at once, 



And if ye slay him I reck not : if ye fail. 
Give ye the slave mine order to be bound, 
Bind him as heretofore, and bring him in : 
It may be ye shall slay him in his bonds." 

She spake ; and at her will they couch'd their spears. 
Three against one: and Gawain passing by. 
Bound upon solitary adventure, saw 
Low down beneath the shadov? of those towers 
A villany, three to one: and thro' his heart 
The flre of honor and all noble deeds 
Flash'd, and he call'd, "I strike upon thy side— 
The caitiffs!" "Nay," said Pelleas, "but forbear; 
He needs no aid who doth his lady's will." 

So Gawain, looking at the villany done. 
Forbore, but in his heat and eagerness 
Trembled and quiver'd, as the dog, withheld 
A moment from the vermin that he sees 
Before him, shivers, ere he springs and kills. 

And Pelleas overthrew them, one to three ; 
And they rose up, and bound, and brought him in. 
Then first her anger, leaving Pelleas, burn'd 
Full on her knights in many an evil name 
Of craven, weakling, and thrice-beaten hound : 
" Tet, take him, ye that scarce are fit to touch. 
Far less to bind, your victor, and thrust him out, 
And let who will release him from his bonds. 
And if he comes again"— there she brake short; 
And Pelleas answer'd, "Lad}', for indeed 
I loved you and I deem'd you beautiful, 
I cannot brook to see your beauty marr'd 
Thro' evil spite : and if ye love me not, 
I cannot bear to dream you so forsworn: 
I had" liefer ye were worthy of my love, 
Thau to be loved again of you— farewell ; 
And tho' ye kill my hope, not yet my love. 
Vex not yourself: ye will not see me more." 

While thus he spake, she gazed upon the man 
Of princely bearing, tho' in bonds, and thought, 
"Why have I push'd him from me? this man loves, 
If love there be : yet him I loved not. Why ? 
I deem'd him fool? yea, so? or that in him 
A something — was it nobler than myself? — 
Seem'd my reproach ? He is not of my kind. 
He could not love me, did he know me well. 
Nay, let him go— and quicklj'." And her knights 
Laugh'd not, but thrust him bounden out of door. 

Forth sprang Gawain, and loosed him from his 
bonds. 
And flung them o'er the walls ; and afterward. 
Shaking his hands, as from a lazar's rag, 
"Faith of my body," he said, "and art thou not— 
Yea thou art he, whom late our Arthur made 
Knight of his table ; yea and he that won 
The circlet? wherefore hast thou so defamed 
Thy brotherhood in me and all the rest. 
As let these caitiffs on thee work their will ?" 

And Pelleas answer'd, "O, their wills are hers 
For whom I won the circlet ; and mine, hers. 
Thus to be bounden, so to see her face, 
Marr'd tho' it be with spite and mockery now. 
Other than when I found her in the woods ; 
And tho' she hath me bounden but in spite. 
And all to flout me, when they bring me in, 
Let me bounden, I shall see her foce; 
Else must I die thro' mine unhappiness." 

And Gawain answer'd kindly tho' in scorn, 
"Wliy, let my lady bind me if she will. 
And let my lady beat me if she will : 
But an she send her delegate to thrall 
These fighting hands of mine — Christ kill me then 
But I will slice him handless by the wrist, 



220 



PELLEAS AND ETTARRE. 



And let my lady sear the stump for him, 

Howl as he may. But hold me for your friend : 

Come, ye know uothing : here I pledge my troth, 

Yea, by the honor of the Table Kouud, 

I will be leal to thee and work thy work, 

And tame thy jailing princess to thine hand. 

Lend me thine horse and arms, and I will say 

That I have slain thee. She will let me in 

To hear the manner of thy light and fall ; 

Then, when I come within her counsels, then 

From prime to vespers will I chant thy praise 

As prowest knight and truest lover, more 

Than any have snug thee living, till she long 

To have thee back in lusty life again. 

Not to be bound, save by white bonds and warm, 

Dearer than freedom. Wherefore now thy horse 

And armor : let me go : • be comforted : 

Give me three days to melt her fancy, and hope 

The third night hence will bring thee news of gold." 

Then Pelleas lent his horse and all his arms, 
Saving the goodly sword, his prize, and took 
Gawain's, and said, "Betray me not, but help- 
Art thou not he whom men call light-of-love ?" 

"Ay," said Gawain, "for women be so light." 
Then bounded forward to the castle walls. 
And raised a bugle hanging from his neck, 
And winded it, and that so musically 
That all the old echoes hidden in the wall 
Eang out like hollow woods at huntingtide. 

Up ran a score of damsels to the tower ; 
"Avaunt," they cried, "our lady loves thee not." 
But Gawain lifting up his visor said, 
"Gawain am I, Gawain of Arthur's court. 
And I have slain this Pelleas whom ye hate: 
Behold his horse and armor. Open gate. 
And I will make you merry." 

And down they Van, 
Her damsels, crying to their lady, " Lo 1 
Pelleas is dead— he told us— he that hath 
His horse and armor : will ye let him in ? 
He Blew him ! Gawain, Gawain of the court, 
Bir Gawain— there he waits below the wall. 
Blowing his bugle as who should say him na}'." 

And so, leave given, straight on thro' open door 
Rode Gawain, whom she greeted courteously. 
"Dead, is it so?" she ask'd. "Ay, ay," said he, 
"And oft in dying cried upon your name." 
"Pity on him," she auswer'd, "a good knight. 
But never let me bide one hour at peace." 
"Ay," thought Gawain, "and ye be fair enow: 
But I to your dead man have given my troth, 
That whom ye loathe him will I make ye love." 

So those three days, aimless about the land. 
Lost in a doubt, Pelleas wandering 
Waited, until the third night brought a moon 
With promise of large light on woods and ways. 

The night was hot : he could not rest, but rode 
Ere midnight to her walls, and bound his horse 
Hard by the gates. Wide open were the gates, 
And no watch kept; and in thro' these he past, 
And heard but his own steps, and his own heart 
Beating, for nothing moved but his own self. 
And his own shadow. Then he crost the court, 
And saw the postern portal also wide 
Yawning ; aud up a slope of garden, all 
Of roses white and red, and wild ones mist 
And overgrowing them, went on, and found, 
Here too, all hush'd below the mellow moon, 
Save that one rivulet from a tiny cave 
Came liglitening downward, and so spilt itself 
Among the roses, and was lost again. 



Then was he ware that white pavilions rose. 
Three from the bushes, gilden-peakt ; in one. 
Red after revel, droned her lurdau knights 
Slumbering, aud their three squires across their feet : 
In one, their malice on the placid lip 
Froz'n by sweet sleep, four of her damsels lay : 
Aud in the third, the circlet of the jousts 
Bound on her brow, were Gawain aud Ettarre. 

Back, as a hand that pushes thro' the leaf 
To find a nest aud feels a snake, he drew: 
Back, as a coward slinks from what he fears 
To cope with, or a traitor proven, or hound 
Beaten, did Pelleas in an utter shame 
Creep with his shadow thro' the court again. 
Fingering at his sword-handle until he stood 
There on the castle-bridge once more, and thought, 
" I will go back, and slay them where they lie." 

And so went back and seeing them yet in sleep 
Said, " Ye, that so dishallow the holy sleep. 
Your sleep is death," aud drev? the sword, and 

thought, 
"What! slay a sleeping knight? the King hath 

bound 
And sworu me to this brotherhood ;" again, 
"Alas that ever a knight should b6 so false." 
Then turu'd, and so return'd, aud groaning laid 
The naked sword athwart their naked throats. 
There left it, and them sleeping ; and she lay, 
The circlet of the tourney round her brows. 
And the sword of the tourney across her throat. 

And forth he past, and mounting on his horse 
Stared at her towers that, larger than themselves 
In their own darkness, throng'd into the moon. 
Then crush'd the saddle with his thighs, and clench 'd 
His hands, and madden'd with himself and moan'd : 

" Would they have risen against me in their blood 
At the last day ? I might have auswer'd them 
Even before high God. O towers so strong. 
Bo solid, would that even while 1 gaze 
The crack of earthquake shivering to your base 
Split you, and Hell burst up your harlot roofs 
Bellowing, and charr'd you thro' aud thro' within, 
Black as the harlot's heart— hollow as a skull ! 
Let the fierce east stream thro' your eyelet-holes, 
And whirl the Just of harlots rouud aud round 
In dung and nettles ! hiss, snake— I saw him there — 
Let the fox bark, let the wolf yell. Who yells 
Here in the still sweet summer night, but I — . 
I, the poor Pelleas whom she call'd her fool? 
Fool, beast— he, she, or I ? myself most fool ; 
Beast too, as lacking human wit— disgraced, 
Dishonor'd all for trial of true love- 
Love ? — we be all alike: only the king 
Hath made us fools and liars. O noble vows ! 

great and sane and simple race orbrutes 
That own no lust because they have no law! 
For why should I have loved her to my shame? 

1 loathe her, as I loved her to my shame. 
I never loved her, I but lusted for her— 
Away—" 

He dash'd the rowel into his horse, 
And bounded forth and vauish'd thro' the night. 

Then she, that felt the cold touch on her throat, 
Awaking knew the sword, and turu'd herself 
To Gawain: " Liar, for thou hast not slain 
This Pelleas ! here he stood and might have slain 
Me and thyself." And he that tells the tale 
Says that her ever-veering fancy turn'd 
To Pelleas, as the one true knight on earth. 
And only lover ; and thro' her love her life 
Wasted aud pined, desiring him in vaiu. 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 



221 



But he by wild and way, for half the night, 
And over hard and soft, striking the sod 
From out the soft, the spark from off the hard. 
Rode till the star above the wakening sun, 
Beside that tower where Percivule was cowl'd. 
Glanced from the rosy forehead of the dsiwu. 
For so the words were flash'd into his heart 
He knew not whence or wherefore : " O sweet star, 
Pure on the virgin forehead of the dawn." 
And there he would have wept, but felt his eyes 
Harder and drier than a fountain bed 
In summer: thither came the village girls 
And linger'd talking, and they come no more 
Till the sweet heavens have flll'd it from the heights 
Again with living waters in the change 
Of seasons : hard his eyes ; harder his heart 
Seem'd ; but so weary were his limbs, that he. 
Gasping, "Of Arthur's hall am I, but here. 
Here let me rest and die," cast himself down. 
And guird his griefs in inmost sleep; so lay. 
Till shaken by a dream, that Gawain fired 
The hall of Merlin, and the moruing star 
Eeel'd in the smoke, brake into flame, and fell. 

He woke, and being ware of some one nigh. 
Sent hands npou him, as to tear him, crying, 
"False 1 and I held thee pure as Guinevere." 

But Percivale stood near him and replied, 
"Am I but false as Guinevere is pure? 
Or art thou mazed with dreams? or being one 
Of our free-spoken Table hast not heard 
That Lancelot " — there he check'd himself and 
paused. 

Then fared it with Sir Pelleas as with one 
Who gets a wound in battle, and the sword 
That made it plunges thro' the wound again. 
And pricks it deeper: and he shrank and wail'd, 
" Is the Queen false ?" and Percivale was mute. 
"Have any of our Round Table held their vows?" 
And Percivale made answer not a word. 
"Is the king true?" "The king!" said Percivale. 
"Why then let meu couple at once with wolves. 
What! art thou mad?" 

But Pelleas, leaping up, 
Ran thro' the doors and vaulted on his horse 
And fled: small pity upon his horse had he. 
Or on himself, or any, and when he met 
A cripple, one that held a hand for alms — 
Hnncn'd as he was, and like an old dwarf-elm 
That turns its back on the salt blast, the boy 
Paused not but overrode him, shouting, "False, 
And false with Gawain !" and so left him bruised 
And batter'd, and fled on, and hill and wood 
Went ever streaming by him till the gloom, 
That follows oh the turning of the world, 
Darken'd the common path: he twitch'd the reins. 
And made his beast that better knew it, swerve 
Now off it and now on ; but when he saw 
High up in heaven the hall that Merlin built. 
Blackening against the dead-green stripes of even, 
"Black nest of rats," he groan'd, "ye build too 
high." 

Not long thereafter from the city gates 
Issued Sir Lancelot riding airily, 
Wann with a gracious parting from the Queen, 
Peace at his heart, and gazing at a star 
And marvelling what it was: on whom the boy, 
Across the silent seeded meadow-grass 
Borne, clash'd : and Lancelot, saying, "What name 

hast thou 
That ridest here so blindly and so hard?" 
"I have no name," he shouted, "a scourge am I, 
To lash the treasons of the Table Round." 
"Yea, but thy name?" "I have many names," he 

cried: 



"I am wrath and shame and hate and evil fame. 
And like a poisonous wind I pass to blast 
And blaze the crime of Lancelot and the Queen." 
"First over roe," said Lancelot, "shalt thou pass." 
" Fight theretore,"yeird the other, and either knight 
Drew back a space, and when they closed, at once 
The weary steed of Pelleas floundering flung 
His rider, who called out from the dark field, 
"Thou art false as Hell : slay me : I have no sword." 
Then Lancelot, " Yea, between thy lips— and sharp ; 
But here will I disedge it by thy death." 
"Slay then," he shriek'd, "my will is to be slain." 
And Lancelot, with his heel upon the fall'u, 
Rolling his eyes, a moment stood, then spake: 
"Rise, weakling; I am Lancelot; say thy say." 

And Lancelot slowly rode his war-horse back 
To Camelot, and Sir Pelleas in brief while 
Caught his unbroken limbs from the dark field. 
And follow'd to the citj'. It chanced that both 
Brake into hall together, worn and pale. 
There with her knights and dames was Guinevere. 
Full wonderingly she gazed on Lancelot 
So soon returu'd, and then on Pelleas, him 
Who had not greeted her, but cast himself 
Down on a bench, hard-breathing. "Have ye 

fought ?" 
She ask'd of Lancelot. "Ay, my Queen," he said. 
"And thou hast overthrown him?" "Ay, my 

Queen." 
Then she, turning to Pelleas, "O young knight. 
Hath the great heart of knighthood in thee fail'd 
So far thou canst not bide, unfrowardly, 
A fall from him ?" Then, for he answer'd not, 
"Or hast thou other griefs? If I, the Queen, 
May help them, loose thy tongue, and let me know." 
But Pelleas lifted up an eye so fierce 
6ho quail'd; and he, hissing, "I have no sword," 
Sprang from the door into the dark. The Queen 
Look'd hard upon her lover, he on her; 
And each foresaw the dolorous day to be: 
And all talk died, as in a grove all song 
Beneath the shadow of some bird of prey. 
Then a long silence came upon the hall, 
And Modred thought, "The time is hard at hand." 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 

That story which the bold Sir Bedivere 
First made and latest left of all the knights. 
Told, when the man was no more than a voice 
In the white winter of his age, to those 
With whom he dwelt, new faces, other minds. 

Before that last weird battle in the West 
There came on Arthur sleeping, Gawaia kill'd 
In Lancelot's war, the ghost of Gawain blown 
Along a wandering wind, and past his ear 
Wpnt shrilling, "Hollow, hollow all delight! 
Hail, king ! to-morrow thou shalt pass away. 
Farewell ! there is an isle of rest for thee. 
And I am blown along a wandering wind. 
And hollow, hollow, hollow all delight." 
And fainter onward, like wild birds that change 
Their season in the night and wail their way 
From cloud to cloud, down the long wind the dream 
Shrill'd ; but in going mingled with dim cries 
Far in the moonlit haze among the hills 
As of some lonely city sack'd by night. 
When all is lost, and wife and child with wail 
Pass to new lords ; and Arthur woke and call'd, 
"Who spake? A dream. O light upon the wind, 
Thine, Gawain, was the voice— are these dim cries 
Thine? or doth all that haunts the waste and wild 
Mourn, knowing it will go along with me ?" 



222 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 



This heard the bold Sir Bedivere and spake,— 
"O me, my king, let pass whatever will, 
Elves, and the harmless glamour of the field ; 
But in their stead thy uame and glory cliug 
To all high places like a golden clond 
Forever: but as yet thou shalt not pass. 
Light was Gawain in life, and light in death 
Is Gawain, for the ghost is as the man ; 
And care not thou for dreams from him, but rise— 
I hear the steps of Modred in the West, 
And with him many of thy people, and knights 
Once thine, whom thou hast loved, but grosser grown 
Thau heathen, spitting at their vows and thee. 
Right well in heart they know thee for the king. 
Arise, go forth and conquer as of old." 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere, — 
"Far other is this battle in the West 
Whereto we move, than when we strove in youth. 
And thrust the heathen from the Roman wall, 
And shook him thro' the North. Ill doom is mine 
To war against my people and my knights. 
The king who fights his people fights himself. 
And they my knights who loved me once the stroke 
That strikes them dead is as my death to me. 
Yet let us hence, and find or feel a way 
Thro' this blind haze, which ever since I saw 
One lying in the dust at Almesbury, 
Hath folded iu the passes of the world." 

Then rose the king and moved his host by night. 
And ever push'd Sir Modred, league by league. 
Back to the sunset bound of Lyounesse, — 
A laud of old upheaven from the abyss 
By file, to sink into the abyss again ; 
Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt, 
And the long mountain ended in a coast 
Of ever-shifting sand, and far away 
Tlie phantom circle of a moaning sea. 
There the pursuer could pursue no more. 
And he that fled no farther fly the king ; 
And there, that day when the great light of heaven 
Burn'd at his lowest in the rolling year, 
On the waste sand by the waste sea they closed. 
Nor ever yet had Arthur fought a fight 
Like this last, dim, weird battle of the West. 
A death- white mist slept over sand and sea: 
Whereof the chill, to him who breathed it, drew 
Down with his blood, till all his heart was cold 
With formless fear, and ev'n on Arthur fell 
Confusion, since he saw not whom he fought. 
For friend and foe were shadows in the mist, 
And friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew ; 
And some had visions out of golden youth. 
And some beheld the faces of old ghosts 
Look in upon the battle; and iu the mist 
Was many a noble deed, many a base. 
And chance and craft and strength in single fights. 
And ever and anon with host to host 
Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn. 
Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash 
Of battle-axes on shatter'd helms, and shrieks 
Afcer the Christ, of those who falling down 
Looked up for heaven, and only saw the mist ; 
And shouts of heathen and the traitor knights. 
Oaths, insult, filth, and monstrous blasphemies, 
Sweat, writhings, anguish, laboring of the lungs 
In that close mist, and cryiugs for the light. 
Moans of the dying and voices of the dead. 

Last as by some one death-bed, after wail 
Of suft'ering, silence follows, or thro' death 
Or deathlike swoon, thus over all that shore, 
Save for some whisper of the seething seas, 
A dead hush fell ; but v^en the dolorous day 
Grew drearier toward twilight falling, came 
A bitter wind, clear from the North, and blew 
The mist aside, and with that wind the tide 



Rose, and the pale king glanced across the field 

Of battle ; but no man was moving there ; 

Nor any cry of Christian heard thereon. 

Nor yet of heathen ; only the wan wave 

Brake in among dead faces, to and fro 

Swaying the helpless hands, and up and down 

Tumbling the hollow helmets of the fallen. 

And shiver'd brands that once had fought with Rome, 

And rolling far along the gloomy shores 

The voice of days of old and days to be. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere, 
And whiter than the mist that all day long 
Had held the field of battle was the king. 

'•nearest thou this great voice that shakes the 
world, 
And wastes the narrow realm whereon we move. 
And beats upon the faces of the dead. 
My dead, as tho' they had not died for me ? — 

Bedivere, for on my heart hath fall'n 
Confusion, till I know not what I am, 
Nor whence I am, nor whether I be king. 
Behold, I seem but king among the dead." 

Then spake the bold Sir Bedivere, "My king, 
King everywhere ! and so the dead have kings. 
There also will I worship thee as king. 
Yet still thy life is M'hole, and still I live 
Who love thee ; but who hates thee, he that brought 
The heathen back among us, yonder stands, 
Modred, unharm'd, the traitor of thine house." 

Then spake the King, " My house hath been my 
doom. 
But call not thou this traitor of my house 
Who hath but dwelt beneath one roof with me. 
Jly house are rather they who sware my vows, 
Yea, even while they brake them, own'd me king. 
And well for thee, saying in my dark hour. 
When all the purport of mj' throne hath fail'd. 
That quick or dead thou boldest me for king. 
King am I, whatsoever be their cry ; 
And one last act of kinghood shalt thou see 
Yet ere I pass." And, uttering this, the king 
Made at the man : then Modred smote his liege 
Hard on that helm, which many a heathen sword 
Had beaten thin, while Arthur at one blow, 
Striking the last stroke with Excalibur, 
Slew him, and all but slain himself he fell. 

So all day long the noise of battle roU'd 
Among the mountains by the winter sea ; 
Until King Arthur's table, man by man. 
Had fall'n in Lyonnesse about their lord, 
King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep. 
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him. 
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, 
A broken chancel with a broken cross. 
That stood on a dark strait of barren land. 
On one side lay the Ocean, and on one 
Lay a great water, and the moon was full. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: 
" The sequel of to-day unsolders all 
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights 
Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep 
They sleep— the men! loved. I think that we 
Shall never more, at any future time, 
Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, 
Walking about the gardens and the halls 
Of Canielot, as in the days that were. 

1 perish by this people which I made, — 
Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again 
To rule once more— but let what will be, be, 
I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm 
That without help I cannot last till mora. 
Thou therefore take \ny brand Excalibur, 



THE PASSING OF AETHUR. 



223 



Which was my pride : for thou rememberest how 

In those old days, cue summer noon, an arm 

Rose up from out the bosom of the lake. 

Clothed iu white samite, mystic, wonderful, 

Holding the sword — and how I row'd across 

And took it, and have worn it, like a king: 

And, wheresoever I am sung or told 

In after-time, this also shall be known: 

But now delay not : take Excalibur, 

And fling him Jar into the middle mere: 

Watch what thou seiist, and lightly bring me word." 

To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere: 
" It is not meet. Sir King, to leave thee thus, 
Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm. 
A little thing may harm a wounded man. 
Yet I thy best will all perform at full. 
Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word." 

So saying, from the ruin'd shrine he stept 
And in the moon athwart the place of tombs. 
Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men. 
Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang 
Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down 
By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock, 
Came on the shining levels of the lake. 

There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, 
And o'er him drawing it, the winter moon. 
Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth 
And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt : 
For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, 
Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work 
Of subtlest jewelry. He gazed so long 
That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood, 
This way and that dividing the swift mind. 
In act to throw : but at the last it seem'd 
Better to leave Excalibur conceal'd 
There in the many-knotted water-flags, 
That whistled stiiT and dry about the marge. 
So strode he back slow to the wounded king. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 
" Hast thou perform'd my mission which I gave ? 
What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?" 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: 
" I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, 
And the wild water lapping on the crag." 

To whom replied King Ai1;hur, faint and pale : 
"Thou hast betray'd thy nature and thy name, 
Not rendering true answer, as beseem'd 
Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight : 
For surer sign had foUow'd, either hand, 
Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. 
This is a shameful thing for men to lie. 
Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again 
As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing 
I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word." 

Then went Sir Bedivere the second time 
Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere. 
Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd in thought ; 
But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, 
How curiously and strangely chased, he smote 
His palms together, and he cried aloud : — 

"And if indeed I cast the brand away. 
Surely a precious thing, one worthy note. 
Should thus be lost forever from the earth. 
Which might have pleased the eyes of many men. 
What good should follow this, if this were done ? 
What harm, undone ? deep harm to disobey. 
Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. 
Were it well to obey then, if a king demand 
An act unprofitable, against himself? 
The king is sick, and knows not what he does. 



What record, or what relic of my lord 
Should be to after-time, but empty breath 
And rumors of a doubt ? but were this kept, 
Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings, 
Some one might show it at a joust of arms, 
Saying, 'King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, 
Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. 
Nine years she wrought it, sitting iu the deeps 
Upon the hidden bases of the hills.' 
So might some old man speak in the after-time 
To all the people, winning reverence. 
But now much honor and much fame were lost." 

So spake he, clouded with his own conceit, 
And hid Excalibur the second time, 
And so strode back slow to the wounded king. 

Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily : 
"What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?" 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: 
" I heard the water lapping on the crag. 
And the long ripple washing in the reeds." 

To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath : 
" Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, 
Unkuightly, traitor-hearted ! Woe is me ! 
Authority forgets a dying king. 
Laid widow'd of the power in his eye 
That bow'd the will. I see thee what thou art. 
For thou, the latest-left of all my knights 
In whom should meet the oflices of all, 
Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt ; 
Either from lust of gold, or like a girl 
Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. 
Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice, 
And the third time may prosper, get thee hence : 
But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur, 
I will arise and slay thee with my hands." 

Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran, 
And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged 
Among the bulrush beds, and clutch'd the sword. 
And strongly wheel'd and threw it. The great brand 
Made lightnings in the splendor of the moon, 
And flashing round and round, and whirl'd ia an 

arch, 
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn. 
Seen where the moving isles of winter shock 
By night, with noises of the northern sea. 
So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur : 
But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 
And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him 
Three times, and drew him under in the mere. 
Aud lightly went the other to the king. 

Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath : 
"Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. 
Speak out : what is it thou hast heard, or seen ?" 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
" Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems 
Should blind my purpose, for I never saw. 
Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die. 
Not tho' I live three lives of mortal men. 
So great a miracle of yonder hilt. 
Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him ; 
But when I look'd again, behold an arm. 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 
That caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him 
Three times, and drew him under iu the mere." 

And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard : 
"My end draws nigh; 'tis time that I were gone. 
Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight. 
And bear me to the margin ; yet I fear 
My wound hath taken cold, aud I shall die." 



224 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 



So saying, from the pay.ement he half rose, 
Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm. 
And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes 
As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere 
Eemorsefully regarded thro' his tears. 
And would have spoken, but he found not words, 
Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee, 
O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands, 
Aud rising bore him thro' the place of tombs. 

But, as he walk'd, King Arthur panted hard, 
Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed 
When all the house is mute. So sigh'd the king, 
^Muttering and murmuring at his ear, " Quick, quick ! 
I fear it is too late, aud I shall die." 
But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge, 
Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk'd, 
Larger than human on the frozen hills. 
He heard the deep behind him, and a cry 
Before. His own thought drove him like a goad. 
Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves 
And barren chasms, and all to left and right 
The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he based 
His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang 
Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels — 
And on a sudden, lo ! the level lake, 
And the long glories of the winter moon. 

Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge, 
Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern, 
Beneath them ; aud descending they were ware 
That all the decks were dense with stately forms 
Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream— by these 
Three Queens with crowns of gold— and from them 

rose 
A cry that shivcr'd to the tingling stars, 
And, as it were one voice, an agony 
Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills 
All night in a waste land, where no one comes, 
Or hath come, since the making of the world. 

Then murmur'd Arthur, "Place me in the barge," 
So to the barge they came. There those three Queens 
Put forth their hands, and took the king, and wept. 
But she, that rose the tallest of them all 
And fairest, laid his head upon her lap, 
Aud loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his 

hands, 
And call'd him by his name, complaining loud. 
And dropping bitter tears against his brow 
Striped with dark blood : for all his i^ice was white 
Aud colorless, and like the wither'd moon 
Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east ; 
And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops 
Of onset ; and the light aud lustrous curls — 
That made his forehead like a rising sun 
High from the diiis-throue— were parch'd with dust ; 
Or, clotted into points aud hanging loose, 
Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips. 
So like a shatter'd column lay the king; 
Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest, 
From spur to plume a star of tournament. 
Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged 
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. 

"Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere, 
•'Ah! my lord Arthur, whither shall I go? 
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes ? 
For now I see the true old times are dead. 
When every moruing brought a noble chance, 
Aud every chance brought out a uoble knight. 



Such times have been not since the light that led 

The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. 

Bat now the whole Round Table is dissolved, 

Which was an image of the mighty world ; 

And I, the last, go forth companionless. 

And the days darken round me, and the years, 

Among new men, strange faces, other minds." 

And slowly answered Arthur from the barge : 
" The old order chaugeth, yielding place to new, 
And God fulfills himself in many ways. 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? 
I have lived my life, and that which I have done 
May He within himself make pur^ ! but thou, 
If thou shouldst never see my face again, 
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer 
Thau this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice 
Eise like a fountaiu for me night and day. 
For what are men better than sheep or goats 
That nourish a bliud life within the brain. 
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
Both for themselves aud those who call them friend ? 
For so the whole round earth is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 
But now fixrevvell. I am going a long way 
With these thou seGst— if indeed I go— 
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) , 
To the island-valley of Avilion ; 
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 
Nor ever wind blows loudly ; but it lies 
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns 
Aud bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea. 
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound." 

So said he, and the barge with oar and sail 
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan 
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, 
Kuffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood 
With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere 
Revolving many memories, till the hull 
Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn, 
And on the mere the wailing died away. 

At length he groan'd, and turning slowly clomb 
The last hard footstep of that iron crag ; 
Thence mark'd the black hull moving yet, and cried, 
"He passes to be king among the dead, 
And after healing of his grievous wound 
He comes again ; but^f he come no more — 
O me, be yon dark Queens in yon black boat. 
Who shriek'd and wail'd, the three whereat we gazed 
On that high day, when, clothed with living light, 
They stood before his throne in silence, friends 
Of Arthur, who should help him at his need ?" 

Then from the dawn it seem'd there came, but faint 
As from beyond the limit of the world. 
Like the last echo born of a great cry. 
Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice 
Around a king returning from his wars. 

Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb 
E'en to the highest he could climb, and saw, 
Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand, 
Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the king, 
Down that long water opening on the deep 
Somewhere far ofi", pass on and on, and go 
From less to less and vanish into light. 
Aud the new sun rose bringing the new year. 



THE NORTHERN FARMER. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



THE NORTHERN FARMER. 

NEW STVLE. 



Dosn't thou 'ear my 'erse's legs, as they canters awaiiy ? 
Proputty, propntty, proputty — that 's what I 'ears 'em saiiy. 
Proputty, proputty, proputty — Sam, thou 's au ass for thy paains. 
Theer 's moor sense i' one o' 'is legs nor in all thy taraains. 

11. 

Woii — theer 's a craw to pluck wi' tha, Sam : you 's parson's 'ouse — 
Dosn't thou Imaw that a man mun be eiither a man or a mouse ? 
Time to think on it then ; for thou '11 he twenty to weeiik.* 
Proputty, proputty — woii then woii — let ma 'ear myseu epeiik. 

III. 

Me an' thy muther, Sammy, 'as beiin a-talkin' o' thee ; 
Thou 'a been talkin' to muther, an' she beiin a tellin' it me. 
Thou '11 not marry for munny — thou 's sweet upo' parson's lass — 
Noii — thou '11 marry for luw — an' we boiith on us thinks tha an ass. 

IV. 

Seeii'd her toda-iy goii by — Saiiint's-daiiy — thay was ringing the belle. 
She 's a beauty thou thinks — an' soii is scoors o' gells, 
Them as 'as munny an' all— wot 's a beauty? — the flower as blaws. 
But proputty, proputty sticks, an' proputty, proputty graws. 



Do'ant be stunt ;t taiike time: I knaws what maiikes tha sa mad. 
Waru't I craiized fur the lasses mysen when I wur a lad ? 
But I knaw'd a Quaiiker feller as often 'as toM'd ma this: 
" Doiint thou marry for muuuy, but goii wheer munny is 1" 

VI. 

An' I went wheer munny war: an' thy mother coom to 'and, 

Wi' lots o' munny laaid by, au' a nicetish bit o' laud. 

Maiiybe she warn't a beauty : — I niver giv it a thowt — 

But warn't she as good to cuddle an' kiss as a lass as 'ant uoAVt ? 

VII. 

Parson's lass 'ant nowt, an' she weiint 'a nowt when 'e 's deiid, 
Mun be a gnvness, lad, or summut, and addict her breiid : 
Why ? fur 'e 's nobbut a curate, an' weiint nivir git naw 'igher ; 
An' 'e maiide the bed as 'e ligs on afoor 'e coom'd to the shire. 

VIII. 
And thin "e coom'd to the parish wi' lots o' 'Varsity debt, 
Stook to his taail they did, an' 'e 'ant got shut on 'em yet. 
An' 'e ligs on 'is back i' the grip, wi' noiin to lend 'im a shove, 
Woorse nor a far-welter'dS yowe : fur, Sammy, 'e married fur luw. 

IX. 

Luw ? what 's luw 1 thou can luw thy lass an' 'er munny too, 
Maakin' 'em goii togither as they 've good right to do. 
Could'n I luw thy muther by cause o' 'er muuny laaid by ? 
Naiiy — fur I luw'd 'er a vast sight moor fur It : reason why. 



% Or fow-weltereil— said of a elieep lyinjj on ila back in the fiirroiv. 

Id 



226 



THE VICTIM. 



X. 

Ay, an' thy muther says thou wants to marry the lass, 
Cooms of a gentleman burn : an' we boiith on us thinks tha an ass. 
WoU then, proputty, wiltha? — an ass as near as mays nowt— * 
Woii then, wiltha? daugtha ! — the bees is as fell as owt.t 

XI. 

Break me a bit o' the esh for his 'ead, lad, out o' the fence ! 
Gentleman burn ! what 's gentleman burn ? is it shillius an' pence ? 
Proputty, proputty 's ivrything 'ere, an', Sammy, I 'm blest 
If it is n't the saiime oop yonder, fur them as 'as it 's the best. 

XII. 

Tis'u them as 'as muuny as breaks into 'ouses an' eteiils. 
Them as 'as coiits to their backs an' taiikes their regular meals. 
Noii, but it 's them as niver knaws wheer a meiil 's to be 'ad. 
TaUke my word for it, Sammy, the poor in a loomp is bad. 

XIII. 

Them or thir feythers, tha sees, mun 'a beiin a laiizy lot. 

Fur work mun 'a gone to the gittin' whiniver munuy was got. 

Feyther 'ad ammost nowt ; leiistwaays 'is munuy was 'id. 

But 'e tued an' moil'd 'isscu deiid, an 'e died a good un, 'e did. 

XIV. 

Look thou theer wheer Wrigglesby beck comes out by the 'ill ! 
Feyther run up to the farm, an' I runs up to the mill ; 
An' I '11 run up to the brig, an' that thou '11 live to see ; 
And if thou marries a good un, I '11 leave the land to thee. 

XV. 

Thim 's my noations, Sammy, v?heerby I means to stick ; 
But if thou marries a bad uu, I '11 leave the laud to Dick. — 
Coom oop, proputty, proputty — that 's what I 'ears 'im saiiy — 
Proputty, proputty, proputty — canter an' canter awaiiy. 



THE VICTIM. 



A rLAGTiE upon the people fell, 
A famine after laid them low. 
Then thorpe and byre arose in tire. 

For on them brake the sudden foe ; 
So thick they died the people cried 

"The Gods are moved against the laud." 
The Priest in horror about his altar 
To Thor and Odin lifted a hand : 
"Help us from famine 
And plague and strife ! 
What would you have of us ? 
Human life? 
Were it our nearest. 
Were it our dearest, 
(Answer, O answer) 
We give you his life." 

2. 

But still the foeman spoil'd and bum'd. 

And cattle died, and deer in wood. 
And bird in air, and fishes turn'd 

And whiten'd all the rolling flood ; 
And dead men lay all over the way. 

Or down in a furrow scathed with flame: 
And ever and aye the Priesthood moan'd 
Till at last it seem'd that an answer came: 
"The King is happy 
In child and wife ; 
Take you his dearest, 
Give us a life." 



The Priest went out by heath and hill ; 

The King was hunting in the wild; 
They found the mother sitting still; 
She cast her arms about the child. 
The child was only eight summers old. 

His beauty still with his years increased, 
His face was ruddy, his hair was gold. 
He seem'd a victim due to the priest. 
The priest beheld him. 
And cried with joy, 
"The Gods have answer'd: 
We give them the boy." 



The King return'd from out the wild. 

He bore but little game in hand ; 
The mother said: "They have taken the child 

To spill his blood and heal the land: 
The land is sick, the people diseased, 

And blight and famine on all the lea: 
The holy Gods, they must be appeased. 
So I pray you tell the truth to me. 
They have taken our son. 
They will have his life. 
Is he your dearest? 
Or I, the wife?" 



The King bent low, with hand on brow. 
He stay'd his arms upon his knee: 

" O wife, what use to answer now ? 
For now the Priest has judged for me." 



t The flies are as fierce as anjthiu 



WAGES.— THE HIGHEK PANTHEISM.— LUCRETIUS. 



227 



The King was shaken with holy fear ; 

"The Gods,'' he said, "would have chosen well; 
Yet both are near, and both are dear, 
And which the dearest I cannot tell !" 
But the Priest was happy, 
His victim won: 
"We have his dearest, 
His only son 1" 

6. 

The rites prepared, the victim bared, 

The knife uprising toward the blow, 
To the altar-stone she sprang alone, 

"Me, not my darling, no !" 
He caught her away with a sudden cry; 

Suddenly from him brake his wife. 
And shrieking "/ am his dearest, I — 
/ am his dearest !" rush'd on the kuife. 
And the Priest was happy, 
"O, Father Odin, 
We give you a life. 
Which was his nearest? 
Who was his dearest ? 
The Gods have answer'd; 
We give them the wife !" 



WAGES. 

Glory of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song, 
Paid with a voice flying by to be lost on an end- 
less sea — 
Glory of Virtue, to fight, to struggle, to right the 
wrong — 
Nay, but she aim'd not at glory, no lover of glory 
she: 
Give her the glory of going on, and still to be. 

The wages of sin is death: if the wages of Virtue 
be dust. 
Would she have heart to endure for the life of the 
worm and the fly ? 
She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of 
the just, 
!ro rest in a golden grove, or to bask in a sum- 
mer sky: 
Give her the wages of going on, and not to die. 



THE HIGHER PANTHEISM. 

The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and 

the plains — 
Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns ? 

Is not the Vision He ? tho' He be not that which He 

seems ? 
Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live 

in dreams? 

Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and 

limb, 
Are they not sign and symbol of tiiy division from 

Him? 

Dark is the world to thee : thyself art the reason 

why ; 
For is He not all but thou, that hast power to feel 

"I am I!" 

Glory about thee, without thee : and thou fulflllest 

thy doom, 
Making Him broken gleams, and a stifled splendor 

and gloom. 



Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with 

Spirit can meet — 
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands 

and feet. 

God is law, say the wise, O Soul, and let us rejoice. 
For if He thunder by law the thunder is yet His 
voice. 

Law is God, say some : no God at all, says the fool ; 
For all we have power to see is a straight stafi' bent 
in a pool ; 

And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man 

cannot see ; 
But if we could see and hear, this Vision— were it 

not He? 



Flowee in the crannied wall, 
I pluck you outt)f the crannies; — 
Hold you here, root and all, in my hand. 
Little flower — but if I could understand 
What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
I should know what God and man is. 



LUCRETIUS. 

LroiLiA, wedded to Lucretius, found 
Her master cold; for when the morning flush 
Of passion and the first embrace had died 
Between them, tho' he loved her none the less, 
Yet often when the woman heard his foot 
Return from pacings in the field, and ran 
To greet him with a kiss, the master took 
Small notice, or austerely, for — his mind 
Half buried in some weightier argument. 
Or fancy-borne perhaps upon the rise 
And long roll of the Hexameter — he past 
To turn and ponder those three hundred scrolls 
Left by the Teacher whom he held divine. 
She brook'd it not ; but wrathful, petulant. 
Dreaming some rival, sought and found a witch 
Who brew'd the philter which had power, they said. 
To lead an errant passion home again. 
And this, at times, she mingled with his drink. 
And this destroy'd him ; for the wicked broth 
Confused the chemic labor of the blood. 
And tickling the brute brain within the man's. 
Made havoc among those tender cells, and check'd 
His power to shape : he loath'd himself; and once 
After a tempest woke upon a morn 
That mock'd him with returning calm, and cried.' 
« 

"Storm in the night! for thrice I heard the rain 
Rushing; and once the flash of a thunderbolt — 
Methought I never saw so fierce a fork — 
Struck out the streaming mountain-side, and show'd 
A riotous confluence of watercourses 
Blanching and billowing in a hollow of it. 
Where all but y ester-eve was dusty-dry. 
• 

"Storm, and what dream?, ye holy Gods, what 
dreams ! 
For thrice I wakeu'd after dreams. Perchance 
We do but recollect the dreams that come 
Just ere the waking : terrible ! for it seem'd 
A void was made in Nature ; all her bonds 
Crack'd ; and I saw the flaring atom-streams 
And torrents of her myriad universe. 
Ruining along the illimitable inane. 
Fly on to clash together again, and make 
Another and another frame of things 



228 



LUCRETIUS. 



For&ver: that was mine, my dream, I kuew it 

Of and belongiug to me, as the dog 

With inward yelp and restless forefoot plies 

His function of the woodland : but the next ! 

I thought that all the blood by Sylla shed 

Came driving rainlike down again on earth, 

And where it dashed the reddening meadow, sprang 

No dragoa warriors from Cadmeau teeth. 

For these I thought my dream would show to me, 

But girls, Hetairai, curious in their art. 

Hired animalisms, vile as those that made 

The mulberry-faced Dictator's orgies worse 

Than aught they fable of the quiet Gods. 

And hands they mist, and yell'd and round me drove 

lu narrowing circles till I yell'd again 

Half suffocated, and sprang up, and saw — 

Was it the first beam of my latest day ? 

"Then, then, from utter gloom stood out the 
breasts, 
The breasts of Helen, and hoveringly a sword 
Now over and now under, now direct, 
Pointed itself to pierce, but ^ank down shamed 
At all that beauty; and as I stared, a fire, 
The fire that left a roofless Ilion, 
Shot out of them, and scorch'd me that I woke. 

"Is this thy vengeance, holy Venus, thine, 
Because I would not one of thine own doves, 
Not ev'n a rose, were offer'd to thee ? thine, 
Forgetful how my rich prooemion makes 
Thy glory fly along the Italian field, 
In lays that will outlast thy Deity? 

"Deity? nay, thy worshippers. My tongue 
Trips, or I speak profanely. Which of these 
Angers thee most, or augers thee at all? 
Not if thou be'st of those who far aloof 
From envy, hate and pity, and spite and scorn, 
Live the great life which all our greatest fain 
Would follow, centred iu eternal calm. 

"Nay, if thou canst, O Goddess, like ourselves 
Touch, and be touched, then would I cry to thee 
To kiss thy Mavors, roll thy tender arms 
Round him, and keep him from the lust of blood 
That makes a steaming slaughter-house of Kome. 

"Ay, but I meant not thee; I meant not her, 
Whom all the pines of Ida shook to see 
Slide from that quiet heaven of hers, and tempt 
The Trojan, while his neat-herds were abroad ; 
Nor her that o'er her wounded hunter wept 
Her Deity false in human-amorous tears ; 
Nor whom her beardless apple-arbiter 
Decided fairest. Rather, O ye Gods, 
Poet-like, as the great Sicilian called 
Calliope to grace his golden verse — 
Ay, and this Kypris also — did I take» 
That popular name of thine to shadow forth 
The all-generating powers and genial heat 
Of Nature, when she strikes through the thick blood 
Of cattle, and light is large and lambs are glad 
Nosing the mother's udder, and the bird 
Makes his heart voice amid the blaze of flowers 
Which things appear the work of mighty Gods. 

• 

"The Gods! and if I go vny work is left 
Unflnish'd — ?/ I go. The Gods, who haunt 
The lucid interspace of world and world, 
Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind. 
Nor ever falls the least white star of snow. 
Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans. 
Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar 
Their sacred everlasting calm ! and such, 
Not all so fine, nor so divine a calm. 
Not such, nor all unlike it, man may gain 
Letting his own life go. The Gods, the Gods ! 



If all be atoms, hov? then should the Gods 

Being atomic not be dissoluble. 

Not follow the great law ? My master held 

That Gods there are, for all men so believe. 

I press'd my footsteps into his, and meant 

Surely to lead my Memmius iu a train 

Of flowery clauses onward to the proof 

That Gods there are, and deathless. Meant ? I 

meant ? 
I have forgotten what I meaut: my mind 
Stumbles, and all my faculties are lamed. 

"Look where another of our Gods, the Sun, 
Apollo, Delius, or of older use 
All-seeing Hyperion — what you will — 
Has mounted yonder ; since he never sware. 
Except his wrath were wreak'd on wretched man, 
That he would only shine among the dead 
Hereafter ; tales ! for never yet on earth 
Could dead flesh creep, or bits of roasting ox 
Moan round the spit — nor knows he what he sees; 
King of the East altho' he seem, and girt 
With song and flame and fragrance, slowly lifts 
His goldeu feet on those empurpled stairs 
That climb into the windy halls of heaven : 
And here he glances on an eye new-born. 
And gets for greeting but a wail of pain ; 
And here he stays upon a freezing orb 
That fain would gaze upon him to the last: 
And here upon a yellow eyelid fall'n 
And closed by those who mourn a friend in vain, 
Not thankful that his troubles are no more. 
And me, altho' his fire is on my face 
Blinding, he sees not, nor at all can tell 
Whether I mean this day to end ms'self, 
Or lend an ear to Plato where he says, 
That men like soldiers may not quit the post 
Allotted by the Gods: but he that holds 
The Gods are careless, wherefore need he care 
Greatly for them, nor rather plUnge at once, 
Being troubled, wholly out of sight, and sink 
Past earthquake — ay, and gout and stone, that break 
Body toward death, and palsy, death-iu-life. 
And wretched age — and worst disease of all, 
Those prodigies of myriad nakednesses. 
And twisted shapes of lust, unspeakable. 
Abominable, strangers at my hearth 
Not welcome, harpies miring every dish. 
The phantom husks of something foully done, 
And fleeting through the boundless universe. 
And blasting the long quiet of my breast 
With animal heat and dire insanity. 

" How should the mind, except it loved them, clasp 
These idols to herself? or do they fly 
Now thinner, and now thicker, like the flakes 
In a fall of snow, and so press in, perforce 
Of multitude, as crowds that in all hour 
Of civic tumult jam the doors, and bear 
The keepers down, and throng, their rags and the}'. 
The basest, far into that council-hall 
Where sit the best and stateliest of the land ? 

" Can I not fling this horror off me again, 
Seeing with how great ease Nature can smile, 
Balmier and nobler from her bath of storm, 
At random ravage? and how easily 
The mountain there has cast his cloudy slough, 
Now towering o'er him in serenest air, 
A mountain o'er a mountain, ay, and within 
All hollow as the hopes and fears of men. 

"But who was he, that in the garden snared 
Picus and Faunus, rustic Gods? a tale 
To laugh at — more to laugh at iu myself— 
For look ! what is it ? there ? you arbutus 
Totters : a noiseless riot underneath 
Strikes through the wood, sets all the tops quiver- 
ing— 



THE GOLDEN SUPPER. 



229 



The mountain quickens into Nymph and Faun ; 

And here an Oread — how the sun delights 

To glance and shift about her slippery sides, 

And rosy knees and supple roundedness, 

And budded bosom-peaks — who this way runs 

Before the rest — A satyr, a satyr, see — 

Follows; but him I proved impossible; 

Twy-natured is no nature ; yet he draws 

Nearer and nearer, and I scan him nov/ 

Beastlier than any phantom of his. kind 

That ever butted his rough brother-brute 

For lust or lusty blood or provender : 

I hate, abhor, spit, sicken at him ; and she 

Loathes him as well; such a precipitate heel, 

Fledged as it were with Mercury's ankle-wing. 

Whirls her to me: but will she fling herself. 

Shameless upon me? Catch her, goatfoot: nay. 

Hide, hide them, million-myrtled wilderness, 

And cavern-shadowing laurels, hide! do I wish — 

What? — that the bush were leafless? or to whelm 

All of them in one massacre ? O ye Gods, 

I know you careless, yet, behold, to you 

From childly wont and ancient use I call — 

I thought I lived securely as yourselves — 

No lewdness, narrowing envy, monkey-spite. 

No madness of ambition, avarice, none : 

No larger feast that under plane or pino 

With neighbors laid along the grass, to take 

Only such cups as left us friendly warm, 

Aflirming each his own philosophy — 

Nothing to mar the sober majesties 

Of settled, sweet, Epicurean life. 

But now it seems some unseen monster lays 

His vast and filthy hands upon my will. 

Wrenching it backward into his ; and spoils 

My bliss in being ; and it was not great ; 

For save when shutting reasons up in rhythm, 

Or Heliconian honey in living words, 

To make a truth less harsh, I often grew 

Tired of so much within our little life. 

Or of so little in our little life — 

Poor little life that toddles half an hour 

Crown'd with a flower or two, and there an end — 

And since the nobler pleasure seems to fade. 

Why should I, beastlike as I find myself. 

Not manlike end myself? — our privilege — 

What beast has heart to do it? And what man. 

What Komau would be dragged in triumph thus ? 

Not I ; not he, who bears one name with her, 

Whose death-blow struck the dateless doom of kings. 

When brooking not the Tarquin in her veins, 

She made her blood in sight of Collatine 

And all his peers, flushing the guiltless air. 

Spout from the maiden fountain in her heart. 

And from it sprang the Commonwealth, which breaks 

As I am breaking now! 

"And therefore now 
Let her, that is the womb aud tomb of all. 
Great Nature, take, and forcing far apart 
Those blind beginnings that have made me man. 
Dash them anew together at her will 
Through all her cycles — into man once more 
Or beast or bird or fish, or opulent flower — 
But till this cosmic order everywhere 
Shatter'd into one earthquake in one day 
Cracks all to pieces, — and that hour perhaps 
Is not so far when momentary man 
Shall seem no more a something to himself, 
But he, his hopes and hates, his homes and fanes. 
And even his bones long laid within the grave, 
The very sides of the grave itself shall pass. 
Vanishing, atom and void, atom and void, 
Into the unseen forever, — till that hour, 
My golden work in which I told a truth 
That stays the rolling Isionian wheel. 
And numbs the Fury's ringlet-suake, aud plucks 
The mortal soul from out immortal hell, 



Shall stand: ay, surely: then it fiiils at last, 

And perishes as I must; for O Thou, 

Passionless bride, divine Tranquillity, 

Yearned after by the wisest of the wise, 

Who fail to find thee, being as thou art 

W^ithout one pleasure and without one pain, 

Howbeit I know thou surely must be mine 

Or soon or late, yet out of seasou, thus 

I woo thee roughly, for thou carest not 

How roughly men may woo thee so they win — 

Thus — thus: the soul flies ont and dies in the air." 

With that he drove the knife iuto his side: 
She heard him raging, heard him fall ; ran in. 
Beat breast, tore hair, cried out upon herself 
As having failed in duty to him, shriek'd 
That she but meant to win him back, fell on him, 
Clasp'd, kiss'd him, wail'd: he answer'd, "Care not 

thou 
What matters ? All is over : Fare thee well !" 



THE GOLDEN SUPPER. 

[This poem is founded upon a story iu Boccaccio. 

A young lover, Juliiin, whose cousin and foster-sister, Camilla, has 
been wedded to iiis friend and rival, Lionel, endeavors to narrate the 
story of his own love for her, and the strange sequel of it. He speaks 
of having been haunted in delirium by visions and the sound of belie, 
sometimes tolling for a funeral, and at last ringing for a marriage ; but 
he breaks away,.overcome, as he approaches the Event, aud a witness 
to it completes the tale.] 

He flies the event: he leaves the event to me: 
Poor Julian — how he rush'd away; the bells. 
Those marriage-bells, echoing in ear aud heart — 
But cast a parting glance at me, you saw, 
As who should say "continue." Well, he had 
One golden hour — of triumph shall I say? 
Solace at least — before he left his home. 

Would you had seen him in that hour of his ! 
He moved thro' all of it majestically — 
Restrain'd himself quite to the close — but now — 

Whether they were his lady's marriage-bells. 
Or prophets of them iu his fantasy, 
I never ask'd: but Lionel and the girl 
Were wedded, and our Julian came again 
Back to his mother's house among the pines. 
But there, their gloom, the Mountains and the Bay, 
The whole land weigh'd him down as .^tna does 
The Giant of Mythology: he would go. 
Would leaVe the laud forever, and had gone 
Surely, but for a whispdr "Go not yet," 
Some warning, aud divinely as it seem'd 
By that which follow'd — but of this I deem 
As of the visions that he told — the event 
Glanced back upon them iu his after life, 
And partly made them — tho' he knew it not. 

And thus he etay'd and would not look at her — 
No, not for months: but, when the eleventh moon 
After their marriage lit the lover's Bay, 
Heard yet once more the tolling bell, and said, 
Would you could toll me out of life, but found — 
All softly as his mother broke it to him — 
A crueller reason than a crazy ear, 
For that low knell tolling his lady dead — 
Dead — aud had lain three days without a pulse: 
All that look'd on her had pronounced her dead. 
And so they bore her (for in Julian's land 
They never nail a dumb head up in elm). 
Bore her free-faced to the free airs of heaven, 
And laid her in the vault of her own kin. 

What did he then ? not die : he is here and hale — 
Not plunge headforemost from the mountain there, 



230 



THE GOLDEN SUPPER. 



Aud leave the name of Lover's Leap: not he: 
He kucw the meaning of the whisper now, 
Thought that he knew it. "This, I stay'd for this; 

love, I have not seen you for so long. 
Now, now, will I go down into the grave, 

1 will be all alone with all I love, 

And kiss her on the lips. She is his no more: 
The dead returns to me, and I go down 
To kiss the dead." 

The fancy stirr'd him so 
He rose and went, and entering the dim vault, 
And, making there a sudden light, beheld 
All round about him that which all will be. 
The light was but a flash, and went again. 
Then at the far end of the vault he saw 
His lady with the moonlight on her face ; 
Her breast as in a shadow-prison, bars 
Of black and bauds of silver, which the moon 
Struck from an opeu grating overhead 
High in the wall, and all the rest of her 
Drown'd in the gloom and horror of the vault. 

"It was my wish," he said, "to pass, to sleep, 
To rest, t© be with her — till the great day 
Peal'd on us with that music which rights all. 
And raised us hand in hand." And kneeling there 
Down in the dreadful dust that once was man, 
Dust, as he said, that once was loving hearts, 
Hearts that had beat with such a love as mine — 
Not such as mine, no, nor for such as hev — 
He softly put his arm about her neck 
Aud kiss'd her more than once, till helpless death 
And silence made him bold — nay, but I wrong him. 
He reverenced his dear lady even in death ; 
But, placing his true hand upon her heart, 
"O, you warm heart," he moaned, "not even death 
Can chill you all at once:" then starting, thought 
His dreams had come again. "Do I wake or sleep? 
Or am I made immortal, or my love 
Mortal once more?" It beat — the heart — it beat: 
Paint — but it beat: at which his own began 
To pulse with such a vehemence that it drown'd 
The feebler motion underneath his hand. 
But when at last his doubts were satisfled, 
He raised her softly from the sepulchre. 
And, wrapping her all over with the cloak 
He came in, and now striding fast, aud now 
Sitting awhile to rest, but evermore 
Holding his golden burden iu his arms, 
So bore her thro' the solitary land 
Back to the mother's house where she was born. 

There the goocL mother's kindly ministering, 
With half a night's appliances, recall'd 
Her fluttering life: she raised an eye that ask'd 
" Where ?" till the things familiar to her youth 
Had made a silent answer: then she spoke, 
"Here! and how came I here?" and learning it 
(They told her somewhat rashly as I think), 
At once began to wander aud to wail, 
"Ay, but you know that you must give me back: 
Send ! bid him come ;" but Lionel was away. 
Stung by his loss had vanish'd, none knew where. 
"He casts me out,'' she wept, "and goes" — a wail 
That seeming something, yet was nothing, born 
Not from believing mind, but shatter'd nerve. 
Yet haunting Julian, as her own reproof 
At some precipitance in her burial. 
Then, when her own true spirit had return'd, 
"O yes, and you," she said, "and none but you. 
For you have given me life and love again. 
And none but you yourself shall tell him of it, 
And you shall give me back when he returns." 
"Stay then a little," auswer'd Julian, "here, 
And keep yourself, none knowing, to yourself; 
And I will do your will. I may not stay, 
No, not an hour; but send me notice of him 



When he returns, aud then will I return, 
And I will make a solemn offering of you 
To him you love." And faintly she replied, 
"And I will do your will, and none shall know." 

Not know? with such a secret to be known. 
But all their house was old and loved them both, 
And all the house had known the loves of both : 
Had died almost to serve them any way. 
And all the land was waste and solitary; 
And then he rode away; but after this, 
An hour or two, Camilla's travail came 
Upon her, and that day a boy was born, 
Heir of his face aud land, to Lionel. 

Ana thus our lonely lover rode awaj', 
Aud pausing at a hostel in a marsh, 
There fever seized upon him : myself was then 
Travelling that land, and meant to rest an hour : 
Aud sitting down to such a base repast. 
It makes me angry yet to speak of it — 
I heard a groaning overhead, and climb'd 
The moulder'd stairs (for everything was vile), 
And iu a loft, with none to wait on him, 
Found, as it seem'd, a skeleton alone. 
Raving of dead men's dust aud beating hearts. 

A dismal hostel in a dismal land, 
A flat malarian world of reed and rush ! 
But there from fever aud my care of him 
Sprang up a friendship that may help us yet. 
For while we roam'd along the dreary coast, 
And waited for her message, piece by piece 
I learnt the drearier story of his life ; 
And, tho' he loved and honor'd Lionel, 
Fou-ud that the sudden wail his lady made 
Dwelt iu his fancy: did he kuow her worth, 
Her beauty even ? should he not be taught, 
Ev'n by the price that others set upon it, 
The value of that jewel he had to guard ? 

Suddenly came her notice aud we past, 
I with our lover to his native Bay. 

This love is of the brain, the mind, the soul : 
That makes the sequel pure ; tho' some of us 
Beginning at the sequel kuow no more. 
Not such am I : aud yet I say, the bird 
That will not hear my call, however sweet, 
But if my neighbor whistle answers him — 
What matter? there are others in the wood. 
Yet when I saw her (and I thought him crazed, 
Tho' not with such a craiiuess as needs 
A cell and keeper), those dark eyes of hers — 
Oh ! such dark eyes ! and not her eyes alone, 
But all from these two where she touch 'd on. earth, 
For such a craziness as Julian's seem'd 
No less than one divine apology. 

So sweetly and so modestly she came 
To greet us, her young hero in her arms ! 
"Kiss him," she said. "You gave me life agaiu. 
He, but for you, had never seen it once. 
His other father you ! Kiss him, and then 
Forgive him, if his name be Julian too." 

Talk of lost hopes and broken heart ! his own 
Sent such a flame into his face, I knew 
Some sudden vivid pleasure hit him there. 

But he was all the more resolved to go. 
And sent at once to Lionel, praying him 
By that great love they both had borne the dead, 
To come and revel for one hour with him 
Before he left the land forevermore ; 
And then to friends — they were not many — who 
lived 



THE GOLDEN SUPPER. 



231 



Scatteringly about that lonely land of his, 
And bade them to a banquet of farewells. 

And Julian made a solemn feast : I never 
Sat at a costlier ; for all round his iall 
From column on to column, as in a wood, 
Not such as here — an equatorial one. 
Great garlands swung and blossom'd : and beneath. 
Heirlooms, and ancient miracles of Art, 
Chalice and salver, wines that, Heaven knows when. 
Had suck'd the fire of some forgotten sun. 
And kept it thro' a hundred years of gloom. 
Yet glowing in a heart of ruby — cups 
Where nymph and god ran ever round m gold — 
Others of glass as costly— some with gems 
Movable and resettable at will, 
And trebling all the rest in value — Ah heavens'. 
Why need I tell you all? — suffice to say 
That whatsoever such a house as his, 
And his was old, has in it rare or fair 
Was brought before the guest: and they, the guests, 
Wonder'd at some strange light in Julian's eyes 
(I told you that he had his golden hour), 
And such a feast, ill-suited as it seem'd 
To such a time, to Lionel's loss and his, 
And that resolved self-exile from a land 
He never would revisit, such a feast 
So rich, so strange, and stranger ev'n than rich. 
But rich as for the nuptials of a king. 

And stranger yet, at one end of the hall 
Two great funereal curtains, looping down, 
Parted a little ere they met the floor. 
About a picture of his lady, taken 
Some years before, and falling hid the frame. 
And just above the parting was a lamp : 
So the sweet figure folded round with night 
Seem'd stepping out of darkness with a smile. 

Well then — our solemn feast — we ate and drank. 
And might — the wines being of such nobleness — 
Have jested also, but for Julian's eyes, 
And something weird and wild about it all: 
What was it ? for our lover seldom spoke, 
Scarce touch'd the meats ; but ever and anon 
A priceless goblet with a priceless wine 
Arising, shovv'd he drank beyond his use ; 
And when the feast was near an end, he said : 

"There is a custom in the Orient, friends — 
I read of it in Persia — when a man 
Will honor those who feast with him, he brings 
And shows them whatsoever he accounts 
Of all his treasures the most beautiful, 
Gold, jewels, arms, whatever it may be. 
This custom — " 

Pausing here a moment, all 
The guests broke in upon him with meeting hands 
And cries about the banquet — "Beautiful! 
Who could desire more beauty at a feast ? " 

The lover answer'd, " There is more than one 
Here sitting who desires it. Laud me not 
Before my time, but hear me to the close. 
This custom steps yet further when the guest 
Is loved and honor'd to the uttermost. 
For after he has shown him gems or gold. 
He brings and sets before him in rich guise 
That which is thrice as beautiful as these. 
The beauty ihat is dearest to his hearts 
' O my heart's lord, would I could show you,' he says, 
'Ev'n ray heart too.' And I propose to-night 
To show you what is dearest to my heart. 
And my heart too. 

"But solve me first a doubt. 
I knew a man, nor many years ago ; 



He had a faithful servant, one whQ lov^d 

His master more than all on -earth beside. 

He falling sick, and seeming close on death. 

His master would not wait until he died. 

But bade his menials bear him from the door, 

And leave him in the public way to die. 

I knew another, not so long ago. 

Who found the dying servant, look him home. 

And fed, and cherish'd him, and saved his life. 

I ask you now, should this first master claim 

His service, whom does it belong to? him 

Who thrust him out, or him who saved his life ? "' 

This question, so flung down before the guests. 
And balanced either way by each, at length 
When some were doubtful how the law would hold, 
Was handed over by consent of all 
To one who had not spoken, Lionel. 

Fair speech was his, and delicate of*i)hrase. 
And he beginning languidly — his loss 
Weigh'd on him yet — but warmipg as he went, 
Glanced at the point of law, to pass it by, 
Aftirmiug that as long as either lived, 
By all the laws of love and gratefulness. 
The service of the one so saved was due 
All to the saver — adding, with a smile. 
The first for many weeks — a semi-smile 
As at a strong conclusion — " Body and soul. 
And life and limbs, all his to work his will." 

Then Julian made a secret sign to me 
To bring Camilla down before them all. 
And crossing her own picture as she came, 
And looking as much lovelier as herself 
Is lovelier than all others — on her head 
A diamond circlet, and from under this 
A veil, that seem'd no more than gilded air, 
Flying by each fine ear, an Eastern gauze 
With seeds of gold — so, with that grace of hers, 
Slow-moving as a wave against the wind. 
That flings a mist behind it in the sun — 
And bearing high in arms the mighty babe. 
The younger Julian, who himself was crown'd 
With roses, none so rosy as himself — 
And over all her babe and her the jewels 
Of many generations of his house 
Sparkled and flashed, for he had decked them out 
As for a solemn sacrifice of love — 
So she came in: — I am long in telpng it. 
I never yet beheld a thing so strange, 
Sad, sweet, and strange together — floated in, — 
While all the guests in mute amazement rose, 
And slowly pacing to the middle hall, 
Before the board, there paused and stood, her breast 
Hard-heaving, and her eyes upon her feet. 
Not daring yet to glance at Lionel. 
But him she carried, him nor lights nor feast 
Dazed or amazed, nor eyes of men ; who cared 4 
Only to use his own, and staring wide 
And hungering for the gilt and jewell'd world 
About him, look'd, as he is like to prove. 
When Julian goes, the lord of all he saw. 

"My guests," said Julian: "you are honor'd now 
Ev'n to the uttermost: in her behold 
Of all my treasures the most beautiful, 
Of all things upon earth the dearest to me." 
Then waving us a sign to seat ourselves. 
Led his dear lady to a chair of state. 
And I, by Lionel sitting, saw his face 
Fire, and dead ashes and aU fire again 
Thrice in a second, felt him tremble too. 
And heard him muttering, "So like, so like; 
She never had a sister. I knew none. 
Some cousin of his and hers — O God, so like!" 
And then he suddenly asked her if she were. 
She shook, and cast her eyes down, and was dumb. 



232 



THE GOLDEN SUPPER. 



And then some other question'd if Bhe came 

From foreign lauds, and still she did not speak. 

.'Vnother, if the boy were hers : but she 

To all their queries answer'd not a word, 

Which made the amazement more, till one of them 

Said, shuddering, " Her spectre !" But his friend 

Replied, in half a whisper, "Not at least 

The spectre that will speak if spoken to. 

Terrible pity, if one so beautiful 

Prove, as I almost dread ts) llud her, dumb !" 

But Julian, sitting by her, answer'd all ; 
" She is but dumb, because iu her you see 
That faithful servant whom we spoke about. 
Obedient to her second master now; 
Wliich will not last. I have her here to-night a 

guest 
So bound to me by common love and loss — 
What! shall \ bind him more? in his behalf. 
Shall I exceed the Persian, giving him 
That which of all things is the dearest to me. 
Not only showing? and he himself pronounced 
That my rich gift is wholly mine to give. 

"Now all be dumb, and promise all of you 
Not to break in on what I say by word 
Or whisper, while I show you all my heart." 
And then began the story of his love 
As here to-day, but not so wordily — 
The passionate moment would not suffer that — 
Past thro' his visions to the burial ; thence 
Powu to this last strange hour in his own hall ; 



And then rose up, and with him all his guests 
Once more as by enchantment; all but he, 
Lionel, who fain had risen, but fell again, 
And sat as if iu chains — to whom he said : 

"Take my free gift, my cousin, for your wife; 
And were it only for the giver's sake, 
And tho' she seem so like the one you lost. 
Yet cast her not away so suddenly. 
Lest there be none left here to bring her back: 
I leave this land forever." Here he ceased. 

Then taking his dear lady by one hand, 
And bearing on one arm the noble babe. 
He slovi'ly brought them both to Lionel. 
And there the widower husband and dead wife 
Rushed each at each with a cry, that rather eeem'd 
For some new death than for a life renew'd ; 
At this the very babe began to wail ; 
At once they turned, and caught and brought him in 
To their charmed circle, and, half killing him 
With kisses, round him closed and claspt again. 
But Lionel, when at last he freed himself 
From wife and child, and lifted up a face 
All over glowing with the sun of life. 
And love, and boundless thanks — the sight of this 
So frighted our good friend, that turning to me 
And saying, "It is over: let us go" — 
There were our horses ready at the doors — 
We bade them no farewell, but mounting these 
He past forever from his native land : 
And I with him, my Julian, back to mine. 



THE END. 



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Number .36. I H ARPER'S MAGAZINE. | Jan", ,870.. 

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